Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 2: Everybody is the j n V. Just hilarious, charlamage the guy.
Speaker 2: We are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest
Speaker 2: in the buildings.
Speaker 3: Are you waiting to get your ass kicked? Let's go,
Speaker 3: let's go red Lobster. Okay, what else, let's go, Let's go. Okay,
Speaker 3: here come to punch.
Speaker 2: Adam a lookin.
Speaker 1: Hey, what did he get? An eight out of ten? Man?
Speaker 1: Almost got it? Almost got it.
Speaker 4: You're very close man. That's a that's a good that's
Speaker 4: a good effort are doing.
Speaker 1: Can we give our brother a water? Please? Please? Regular
Speaker 1: get a big mac?
Speaker 3: You got a mouthful of you know, it's crazy, Demola.
Speaker 3: We interview a lot of people, and people always ask,
Speaker 3: you know, who do you want to interview?
Speaker 1: And I never know the answer.
Speaker 3: But then I see certain people on the schedule and
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn, I would like to talk to this guy.
Speaker 1: And when I saw your name on the schedule, I
Speaker 1: was like, see you alread lost. Yes, I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk to him. Ye, you guys are doing amazing things.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be so let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 5: How did you get into fool because you just weren't
Speaker 5: the CEO of a lapster, you with CEO of PF Chang.
Speaker 5: So how did you get your start into this restaurant business.
Speaker 1: And you're only thirty six?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, look, I mean really, I started by waiting
Speaker 4: tables when I was young, when I was in high school.
Speaker 4: And you're from I'm from I'm Nigerian originally. I went
Speaker 4: to high school in Maryland. Okay, So it's nice, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, doing the waiter slash runner thing in high school.
Speaker 4: But in this current track, you know, I started working
Speaker 4: in finance when I was in college. So I started
Speaker 4: interning at Goldman Sacks when I was nineteen, so seventeen
Speaker 4: years ago. Wow, So I got my first internship at Goldman.
Speaker 4: I was at Brown playing football and worked at Goldman
Speaker 4: for four years, and then worked at a private equity
Speaker 4: firm called TPG, and then went to business school and
Speaker 4: then worked at a hedge fund here in New York.
Speaker 4: The reason I got into restaurants because I did a
Speaker 4: restaurant deal. We bought PF. Chang's in twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 4: worked for John Paulson, who's a famous billionaire investor in
Speaker 4: New York This firm is called Pulson and Company. So
Speaker 4: I was working at a hedge fund and we do
Speaker 4: a lot of things. The hedge fund's big, it's you know,
Speaker 4: billions of dollars and we do a lot of different things.
Speaker 4: But one of the things that we did that I
Speaker 4: suggested was to buy PF. Chanks was up for sale.
Speaker 4: So I pitched it to the firm. They agreed, but
Speaker 4: it was I led the deal. This is twenty nineteen now,
Speaker 4: so it was up for sale. You know, I thought
Speaker 4: it was an interesting thing, good brand, great great history,
Speaker 4: great product. I thought we could do a lot of
Speaker 4: new things with it. We could ad delivery, we could
Speaker 4: remodel the restaurants, we could make it more.
Speaker 1: Interesting, it make it more relevant, cool, and it was
Speaker 1: all going pretty well.
Speaker 4: And then COVID hit right in twenty twenty, so my
Speaker 4: big restaurant dealed. You know, we put hundreds of millions
Speaker 4: of dollars into it, and it went south during COVID,
Speaker 4: like like everything else did.
Speaker 1: All the restaurants were closed.
Speaker 2: So just curious how much was Pfchang selling for it
Speaker 2: back then?
Speaker 4: You know, we never released it, but there's an article
Speaker 4: that quotes something around seven hundred million.
Speaker 1: It's in the in the ballpark. So they didn't make
Speaker 1: their money back clearly though, No we didn't. But that's
Speaker 1: the thing. I had to go save it.
Speaker 4: So then in COVID, it looked it looked like it
Speaker 4: looked like we weren't gonna It looked like a bad deal.
Speaker 4: And it was my deal, so you know, that's that's
Speaker 4: on me, right, So it wasn't looking good. We lost
Speaker 4: the CEO during COVID, and I had to go step
Speaker 4: into sort of rescue the situation. Now, the year before that,
Speaker 4: I was chief strategy officer, so I'd been there every week.
Speaker 4: I was flying to Scotts salehere the company is headquartered.
Speaker 4: I was flying back to New York. So I was
Speaker 4: running the company kind of as chief strategy officer. And
Speaker 4: then I was at the Hedge Fund. And then when
Speaker 4: COVID happened, we lost the CEO, they asked me to
Speaker 4: be CEO. So that's when I stepped in again because
Speaker 4: it's my deal. I'm responsible for the outcome, right, So
Speaker 4: I went in there to try to salvage things and
Speaker 4: get us through COVID, which we did, and then then
Speaker 4: we grew from there and ended up ended up being
Speaker 4: a really good deal, but not without a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, blood, sweat and tears for a few years
Speaker 4: and getting through it.
Speaker 1: So that was that that that ended up well.
Speaker 2: So you took the salt and pepper prawns off the menu.
Speaker 1: That was me right, I was gone by that. I
Speaker 1: got so many questions.
Speaker 3: Man number one, you know you said you guys want
Speaker 3: to talk about you got to you said you you
Speaker 3: started at nineteen doing what you was.
Speaker 4: I got my first internship at Goldman Sachs, who put investment.
Speaker 3: Who pushed those seeds in your mind at such a
Speaker 3: young age to say this is what I want to
Speaker 3: do at nineteen.
Speaker 4: Years old, it's a good it's a good question. So
Speaker 4: when I was even younger than that, when I was
Speaker 4: in high school, I played football and I was trying
Speaker 4: to go to a good school. But at the same
Speaker 4: time I was trying to play football in college. Ended
Speaker 4: up playing at Brown. But before that, I won a
Speaker 4: speech contest. I had an English teacher that was like,
Speaker 4: joined the speech and debate team. You talk too much,
Speaker 4: I think, as what she was trying to say. But
Speaker 4: I joined the speech and debate team and I won
Speaker 4: a couple of things. I won the state championship for
Speaker 4: debate that I want a speech contest, which paid me
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars. Right, it was a scholarship, and it
Speaker 4: was the most money I'd ever had at that point.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, we made it, right like, and I
Speaker 4: decided I wanted to invest that money. That's why I
Speaker 4: started with investing. So I got a bunch of money.
Speaker 4: When I was in high school. I started wanting to invest.
Speaker 4: What does that mean? Back then, everybody's doing real estate.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh five oh six, everybody's trying to buy
Speaker 4: real estate. So I thought I could do that. It
Speaker 4: wasn't enough money, I learned quickly, but uh, but I
Speaker 4: could buy stocks. So I got into stocks first, and
Speaker 4: I opened a portfolio, and I just started. I read
Speaker 4: there's a there's a website called the Motley Fool. I
Speaker 4: think it's still around, but that's what I used to read.
Speaker 4: I'd read anything about Buffett and I stop. You know,
Speaker 4: you can buy stocks with a one hundred dollars. You
Speaker 4: can buy stocks with ten thousand dollars. You buy stocks
Speaker 4: of millions of dollars, right, it's just you buy more
Speaker 4: of them. So I learned that and sort of trained
Speaker 4: myself and asked a bunch of questions of people who
Speaker 4: I knew that were doing that sort of thing. So
Speaker 4: when I got to Brown, I joined the Investment Club.
Speaker 4: That's it's an IV League school. There's a bunch of
Speaker 4: people who you know, their parents work in that world,
Speaker 4: they grew up around it. They know a lot, right,
Speaker 4: So I learned a lot quickly, and then I applied
Speaker 4: for Goldman, And you know, you got to pretend a
Speaker 4: little bit, right, So I studied. I didn't come from
Speaker 4: that world, but but I studied, and I showed up
Speaker 4: to these interviews and I got the internship.
Speaker 1: When you say pretend, what do you mean, Well, you don't.
Speaker 1: You know? People know.
Speaker 4: There's people that that are born and raised to do this,
Speaker 4: and they're taught at a young age.
Speaker 1: You know, I was teaching myself in high school and college.
Speaker 4: When I say pretend, it's it's you study enough to
Speaker 4: be dangerous to come into an interview and know what
Speaker 4: you're talking. It's not faking it. It's teaching. It's it's
Speaker 4: becoming the thing you need to be. It's becoming the
Speaker 4: person you need to be. So pretend is the wrong word,
Speaker 4: but it's becoming preparing.
Speaker 1: You need to. You need to.
Speaker 4: You need to recognize that you don't who you are
Speaker 4: now is and who you're going to be ultimately, and
Speaker 4: you need to take steps towards your goals. That's what
Speaker 4: you know and that's how you are both. So what
Speaker 4: you know is studying books, studying how to invest, studying stocks.
Speaker 4: How you are is like working in gold massacces is hard.
Speaker 4: It's you need discipline, you need work ethic, you need curiosity.
Speaker 4: You need to be able to communicate you and be
Speaker 4: able to defend your ideas and negotiate like all these things.
Speaker 4: So there's skills that you have to develop in yourself
Speaker 4: and there's knowledge you need to acquire both. And when
Speaker 4: you do those things, you can be dangerous, right, you
Speaker 4: can show up to something and stand up and get it,
Speaker 4: make it happen.
Speaker 3: So was it your parents like a bother figure, mother
Speaker 3: figure like who pushed you in that direction?
Speaker 6: Because even in high school you're talking about you invested
Speaker 6: the money.
Speaker 4: Like I was making Listen, it's six everybody was making money.
Speaker 4: Stocks were just going up back then. I thought I
Speaker 4: was a genius, but it was just the market.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what were.
Speaker 3: You doing as a child, Like, that's what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to figure out. Like, like, I mean, so I was born.
Speaker 4: In Nigeria and my dad's a doctor, he's a neurologist.
Speaker 1: My family is all about academics.
Speaker 4: So the idea to be like to try to achieve
Speaker 4: has just been in my life since I was young.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's you know, what are your grades?
Speaker 4: You got six a'h one B? What's up with that B? Like,
Speaker 4: let's get that to an A. That's that was kind
Speaker 4: of my childhood. And then we were immigrants to America.
Speaker 4: We moved when I was nine and coming here for us,
Speaker 4: I mean, my parents did a lot to bring us here.
Speaker 4: It's it's a very complicated, difficult process and it took years, right,
Speaker 4: It's like five years for them to do that.
Speaker 1: So I think you should be saying that at the time,
Speaker 1: like this, well, you know.
Speaker 4: It's it's there's different ways to immigrates.
Speaker 1: This is skill.
Speaker 4: This is the skill visa is what my dad used,
Speaker 4: and it's it's a legitimate process. It just takes a
Speaker 4: long time. Yeah, there's a bunch of tests, there's a
Speaker 4: bunch of they.
Speaker 3: Don't care you're a successful black man. You're too smart.
Speaker 2: So how did you get to.
Speaker 1: Red Red Lobster.
Speaker 4: So, you know, the PF chains deal went well, and
Speaker 4: you know, it won me some some plaudits in the
Speaker 4: industry because it was difficult, right, and and we made
Speaker 4: it happen. And then after that, I connected with the
Speaker 4: folks who had lent money to Red Lobster before the
Speaker 4: company went bankrupt, so they were in line to own
Speaker 4: it coming out of bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: It's a good group called Fortress.
Speaker 4: And so they asked me first to consult to provide advice, like,
Speaker 4: you know, you were just spent for years running a
Speaker 4: business that was in distress similar to this, you know,
Speaker 4: what do you think of this situation? So I was
Speaker 4: advising them at first, and then it turned into they
Speaker 4: asked me to come run it. Basically presented a plan.
Speaker 4: They were like, well, like your plan police come executed
Speaker 4: for us, right, So I took over a CEO coming
Speaker 4: out of bankruptcy in September.
Speaker 1: That's you's what we've been doing.
Speaker 3: You know, when I first heard that story, I was
Speaker 3: on the radio acting like I knew what I was
Speaker 3: talking about, and I was just like, I know exactly
Speaker 3: what Red Lobster should be doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I felt like Red Lobster.
Speaker 3: Should you know, scale down from being a fine dining
Speaker 3: establishment and be more like Chipotle, Like you could go
Speaker 3: in there and you know you can get your lobster
Speaker 3: insturment pasta right from the bar or whatever. The items
Speaker 3: is just right there from the bar. Just make it
Speaker 3: like a smaller, more Chipotle like establishment of the post
Speaker 3: of buying dining restaurant.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing about Chipotle is they have a well.
Speaker 1: So your point about.
Speaker 4: Being able to get food conveniently is an important one.
Speaker 4: There should be options and there should be ways.
Speaker 1: Where you get things you need quickly.
Speaker 4: For example, our delivery business that should feel fast casualist
Speaker 4: where you put it in order, it comes quickly, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Are the way the company is set up has a
Speaker 4: cost structure that you can run it. You can run
Speaker 4: it like Chipole. For example, our restaurants they're nine to
Speaker 4: ten thousand square feet pulleys a fifteen hundred square feet
Speaker 4: maybe two thousand max. So you have a real estate
Speaker 4: footprint that you couldn't run on Chipotle revenue per unit.
Speaker 1: Right, you have to you have to do more.
Speaker 4: The food we serve, we serve lobster and crab you
Speaker 4: can't sell that at chipole price points because you pay
Speaker 4: too much for those products. So there's there's structural differences
Speaker 4: in the businesses that would prevent that. But that said,
Speaker 4: some of the things Polly is good at you can
Speaker 4: be better at, right, like delivery, digital, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: speed of service. Those are things that people care about,
Speaker 4: and definitely you can learn from it.
Speaker 1: Hold on, Remember I started off by saying acting like
Speaker 1: I knew it. I knew I said, acting like, so,
Speaker 1: how do you say red lobster?
Speaker 4: Now? Right? Well, so the thing is you have to
Speaker 4: lean into what made it successful in the first place, right, Like,
Speaker 4: what do people love about red lobster?
Speaker 1: There's reason it is what it is. Biscuits biscuits for sure.
Speaker 5: And I also think a lot of us from where
Speaker 5: we grew up that was you know, we went for graduation,
Speaker 5: we went for celebratory.
Speaker 2: It felt like five stars, felt like five until you
Speaker 2: start to make that's it.
Speaker 5: But until all these other restaurants started popping up. Now,
Speaker 5: you know, people look down on red Lobster when it
Speaker 5: comes to celebratory. They'll go to you know, a PF Chanins,
Speaker 5: They'll go to a towel, they'll go to an expensive
Speaker 5: steakhouse because they don't look at Red Lobster as that
Speaker 5: in I think, but you know it's good, but you know,
Speaker 5: so how do you change that way of thinking?
Speaker 1: So it used to be it used to be.
Speaker 4: Red Lobster was the first company to take these high
Speaker 4: end seafood products across the country. It was the first
Speaker 4: place you could get lobster, get crap for a lot
Speaker 4: of people, their first experience I went with to Red
Speaker 4: Lobster in Springfield, Illinois when I used to live there
Speaker 4: when I was nine or ten, and I remember that right,
Speaker 4: So I think people a lot of people have these
Speaker 4: memories after church on Sundays, you know, important dinners, graduation,
Speaker 4: et cetera. The it's now you can get these products
Speaker 4: in different places, but we're still the only company at
Speaker 4: scale that serves lobster and crab. And by the way,
Speaker 4: it's not Lobster and crab are wild caught products. You
Speaker 4: can't form raise them, so they catch them on boats.
Speaker 4: We buy twenty five percent of the lobster that's that's
Speaker 4: caught on boats in North America.
Speaker 1: We buy a quarter of it.
Speaker 4: Wow, We buy a quarter of the crab that's caught
Speaker 4: by virtue of our size and scale, we can get
Speaker 4: the best product, which we do. So the lobster you
Speaker 4: get a red lobster is as good as lobster.
Speaker 1: You'll get anywhere.
Speaker 4: But people don't know that at all, and so there's
Speaker 4: a communication aspect to it that need to let people
Speaker 4: know this is the best this is the best product
Speaker 4: you can get for lobster, for crab. That's number one.
Speaker 4: Number two, you need to give people a reason. You know,
Speaker 4: you mentioned Chipotle. If we're not going to be prices
Speaker 4: to Chiapole, then we need to offer something and that
Speaker 4: Chipotle doesn't offer. And what that is is called service
Speaker 4: and hospitality. Like you need to come in, you need
Speaker 4: to feel like you're weal them, you need to feel
Speaker 4: like you're a guest. You need to be taken care of.
Speaker 4: You need to get it in connection with your server.
Speaker 4: So it's food and its services where we win and ambiyonce.
Speaker 1: A lot of these restaurants don't.
Speaker 2: Feels like McDonald's at times when you walk out, the
Speaker 2: floors look very cold.
Speaker 4: The right word outdated. I did a I did a
Speaker 4: remodel project. I totally agree. I did a remodel project
Speaker 4: at PF Chain's where we remodel eighty percent of the restaurants.
Speaker 4: Right if you go to them now, it's red, gold,
Speaker 4: black like. So that's what we you know, we did that,
Speaker 4: and so this needs something similar and we're working on that.
Speaker 4: That takes a bit of time. You have to design it,
Speaker 4: you have to scope it, you have to test it,
Speaker 4: you have to prove the results. Then you have to
Speaker 4: raise the money.
Speaker 1: Then you have to go. So that takes time.
Speaker 4: What you can do now is improve service. We launched
Speaker 4: something we're calling red Carpet Hospitality. We launched that a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago. If you go and ask the
Speaker 4: server and red lobster about it, they'll tell you about it.
Speaker 4: RED stands for recognized, engage and delight. When people walk in,
Speaker 4: you need to recognize them. Smile as soon as they
Speaker 4: walk in. There should be somebody smiling at the host
Speaker 4: stand to greet them. You see somebody, you're within ten
Speaker 4: feet of them, you recognize them within four feet, you
Speaker 4: speak to them. We call it the ten four role.
Speaker 4: You make sure that you know when people need to
Speaker 4: go to the bathroom, you walk them there. You don't
Speaker 4: point to the bathroom, You escort them. You make sure
Speaker 4: that you're connecting with them, you're talking with them, youre
Speaker 4: asking questions. So we're training these behavioral patterns. That's something
Speaker 4: you can do today, right, and then trying to highlight
Speaker 4: the quality of the food and introduce them new things
Speaker 4: like the lobster roles that are fun, that are interesting,
Speaker 4: so food and service. And then the third point for
Speaker 4: sure is a Beyonce. We fix the things we can
Speaker 4: fix quickly, like the music is better. If you go
Speaker 4: to a red lobster now, you'll notice the music is better.
Speaker 4: And you'll notice there's small things like we put the
Speaker 4: market prices on the lobster, we put the liners on
Speaker 4: the tables. There's small things you can do now, but comprehensively,
Speaker 4: there needs to be a remodel, right, and that's something
Speaker 4: that we'll do in the future.
Speaker 3: I think that y'all got a great foundation because the
Speaker 3: biggest thing is that nobody's ever said the food.
Speaker 1: Was whack, even to this day. You walked them to
Speaker 1: ge business and there everybody went crazy. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You think about episodes of the Boondocks when Riley was
Speaker 3: going crazy lost and shrimp pasta has always been my
Speaker 3: favorite dishes.
Speaker 1: I would fuck that up right now, like right next.
Speaker 2: But you know what, like you're the one day the run.
Speaker 5: The one reason I stopped going to Red Lobster is
Speaker 5: because I always felt like Red Lobster's food wasn't as
Speaker 5: good as a lot of these other places. But now
Speaker 5: that you're telling me that they're all got from the
Speaker 5: same place, I just myself felt like it was maybe
Speaker 5: it's a processed type of thing, and if I go
Speaker 5: to this restaurant, maybe there I never felt like your food.
Speaker 4: The food is great, and especially again lobster and crab,
Speaker 4: because again we buy most of it. We buy more
Speaker 4: than every country except a couple. You know, Japan with
Speaker 4: all their sushi buy buys a lot of lobster and crab,
Speaker 4: and I think China is the only only one that
Speaker 4: buys more than we do. So just because of that,
Speaker 4: we get the best product. We have scale, we can
Speaker 4: demand things, we can insist on standards, which we do,
Speaker 4: so product wise, it's it's there, But there's a communication
Speaker 4: that needs to happen. And I'll tell you something like
Speaker 4: going through what the company went through, the bankruptcy was
Speaker 4: damaging in a lot of ways, but one of the
Speaker 4: things that it raises the question like is they mess
Speaker 4: with the product, and the answer is no, right, because
Speaker 4: that's one thing you can't mess with. And coming out
Speaker 4: of it, I just want to get people thinking about
Speaker 4: Red Lobster how they used to, which is like a
Speaker 4: fun time, a great meal, great service, great hospitality, and
Speaker 4: now we need to deliver on that. If I say
Speaker 4: great hospitality, people going to have a good experience, and
Speaker 4: then you know that makes me a liar. But we're
Speaker 4: seeing the results. So before we launched it, we track
Speaker 4: what we call a sentiment score, which is not positive
Speaker 4: versus negative sentiment, right, like what are people saying that
Speaker 4: it's good versushether people saying that's bad. It was thirty
Speaker 4: when I took over. This last month it was sixty,
Speaker 4: so it doubled, right, And that's after we launched these programs.
Speaker 4: We got people because they want people want to have
Speaker 4: a good experience at work. These waiters and waitresses, it's
Speaker 4: better for them if they can enjoy themselves and talk
Speaker 4: to a guest, and they've given license to do that.
Speaker 4: So we basically like let them let them free on
Speaker 4: that and gave them some direction, some coaching, some training,
Speaker 4: and you see the result. So yeah, when you go
Speaker 4: to Red Lobster next, you'll see it's. Uh, it's gonna
Speaker 4: feel different, that people are going to take care of
Speaker 4: you different. There's other things we need to do that
Speaker 4: will take time. I agree with you on the remodels,
Speaker 4: but we're starting, you know where we can.
Speaker 2: What about franchise, I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there was a list that women that put together
Speaker 6: right of places that they don't want to be taken
Speaker 6: on the first date. Red Lapster was number eleven. Eleven, Yes,
Speaker 6: it was number eleven. So did you see that list?
Speaker 2: You look like you see it.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna show you right after. But what do you
Speaker 6: would you say that real laps is a valid place
Speaker 6: for a first date?
Speaker 1: I mean lobster on a first date?
Speaker 4: Can you beat that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: First date?
Speaker 4: You want to share some main lobster twin lobster tales,
Speaker 4: rock lobster main right, Okay, But.
Speaker 7: Also on that list it was PF Chain's and cheesecake.
Speaker 4: I think it's these are chain restaurants, and there's something
Speaker 4: about like chain versus independent. Now, if you make the
Speaker 4: chain experience feel like an independent, like each restaurant's its
Speaker 4: own and they have like a culture and personality. Then
Speaker 4: it doesn't feel like a chain restaurant. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 4: restaurants that do that really well, and we're, you know,
Speaker 4: we're working to become that. But look, if you go
Speaker 4: in a date and have some Chadybay biscuits, some lobster tails,
Speaker 4: some barred eye crab, people are gonna have a great time.
Speaker 5: I wanted to know about franchise, and I know most
Speaker 5: of the stores a company owned, but you do do
Speaker 5: they still allow certain people to own franchising or not
Speaker 5: at all anymore?
Speaker 4: So all the company all the stores in the US
Speaker 4: are company owned. There's still some franchise internationally, but it's
Speaker 4: a smaller group. It's about thirty units abroad.
Speaker 5: Why is that good of bad? Is it good if
Speaker 5: some somebody that owns it in that area? Or you
Speaker 5: do you think is better because it's company owned, everything
Speaker 5: is corporately, everything is stamped, everything is the same way.
Speaker 4: Well, it's trade offs, right, and so I'll just speak
Speaker 4: broadly about the franchise model versus the corporate owned and
Speaker 4: operated model. When you own and operate your restaurants, the
Speaker 4: benefit is you get to control them more closely. So
Speaker 4: what I just talked about red carpet hospitality. I rolled
Speaker 4: it out in our restaurants with I COEO and my
Speaker 4: team and we went. We presented to the people who
Speaker 4: manage the rest the level above the restaurants, the people
Speaker 4: who they report to the people at the restaurants.
Speaker 1: We can we rolled it out quickly. You can do that.
Speaker 1: Get everybody in a call. This is what we're doing.
Speaker 4: If it's a franchise business, I need to convince a
Speaker 4: bunch of franchisees A to agree that it's a good
Speaker 4: idea B to one to fund it. This case is
Speaker 4: there's no funding require, but if it might need money
Speaker 4: and they had to put up the cash right Whereas
Speaker 4: you know, if it's if we run it, we can
Speaker 4: just make that decision. So it's easier to do things
Speaker 4: when you control the business. It's easier to improve and
Speaker 4: control quality because you'll have some franchises that do great,
Speaker 4: some franchises that don't, some franchises that have great hositalities,
Speaker 4: some that don't right, so it's easier to manage. Now,
Speaker 4: the benefit of franchise model is you have partners that
Speaker 4: are running smaller businesses. So we have five hundred and
Speaker 4: forty five restaurants if you had ten franchises, it feel
Speaker 4: like you know, ten fifty restaurant chains, right, which is
Speaker 4: easier to manage on some level.
Speaker 1: So there's trade offs.
Speaker 4: But you'll see as a lot of fast casual will
Speaker 4: do franchise models because they're easier to run. Make a pizza,
Speaker 4: So it's easy to franchise pizza restaurants, right if you
Speaker 4: put in another and for ex many minutes, and so
Speaker 4: they can do that and control the quality because it's
Speaker 4: just not that hard. When it gets complicated, you have
Speaker 4: to be careful, not that you can't do it, but
Speaker 4: you just have to be careful and make sure that
Speaker 4: the people you're franchising too art can run it and
Speaker 4: will kind of follow the direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a million. I got more questions.
Speaker 4: You run out, you run a franchise, franchise a few restaurants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Crystal christ in South Carolina, Me and my wife
Speaker 1: bought a five of them.
Speaker 3: Good, But I got so many questions for you. But
Speaker 3: now I'm just sitting there thinking about, you know, Red Lobster,
Speaker 3: how do you keep people feeling.
Speaker 1: The nostalgia Red Lobster? Because as I'm sitting here and
Speaker 1: I'm listening to you talk.
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking about all the different memories I've had
Speaker 3: in Red Lobster, So.
Speaker 1: How do you keep this nostalgia that but then still
Speaker 1: move people forward. That's that's why I love the brand.
Speaker 4: That's part of what So when we bought PF Chanks,
Speaker 4: I used to tell people, like you asked anybody about
Speaker 4: PF Chanks, They'll be like, oh, I love PF Chanks.
Speaker 4: I used to go to outre I haven't been in
Speaker 4: a while, and same with Red Lobster into a higher degree.
Speaker 4: I think, especially in our community, a lot of people
Speaker 4: have these amazing memories, and so that's a good starting point.
Speaker 4: So if one is to redeliver on the promise of
Speaker 4: the initial brand, right, which is great food, great service
Speaker 4: at an affordable price. And so we need to deliver
Speaker 4: that number one, which is red carpet hospitality, the food
Speaker 4: menu stuff, like we're working on all that, and then
Speaker 4: it's inviting people back, right, So that's a marketing challenge,
Speaker 4: like talking about it, letting people know that it's different,
Speaker 4: it's got new leadership, we're doing new things, and we're
Speaker 4: trying to get the word out on that. And then
Speaker 4: and then it builds. People come in with good memories,
Speaker 4: trying to see what it is and if they have
Speaker 4: a great experience, then you snap back into it. People
Speaker 4: basically have like they'll have like three, four or five
Speaker 4: restaurants in their minds that they go to. It's dinner
Speaker 4: Thursday night, dinner Friday night. They've got like a list
Speaker 4: in your head. Everybody does sho, I go this one
Speaker 4: or this one of that one. So what you're trying
Speaker 4: to do is get on that list. And you do
Speaker 4: that by getting people to try you and then delivering,
Speaker 4: and then you get on You do that enough times,
Speaker 4: then you're on the list.
Speaker 1: Then you become a.
Speaker 4: Place they think about and you can increase frequency.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's it.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's simple, but it's complicated. It's simple what
Speaker 4: needs to happen. But it's a it's a big organization
Speaker 4: and it's a lot of uh, it's a lot of work, right,
Speaker 4: but but the team's teams motivated and we're getting it done.
Speaker 3: How do you eradicate the stigma of chain restaurants because
Speaker 3: I think that's another thing too, right, people think chain
Speaker 3: restaurants just on healthy for some reason. Even when I
Speaker 3: invested in Crystal, I like the fact that they had
Speaker 3: a vegan option on the menu and.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But I also wouldn't try to push anything that I
Speaker 3: know I wouldn't eat, right, So ye, so I would
Speaker 3: eat crystal, I would eat red lobster. Like, how do
Speaker 3: you get people to eradicate the stigma of just chain
Speaker 3: restaurants not being healthy?
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean some chain restaurants are unhealthy based on the products
Speaker 4: they use. I think it's it's about focusing on the
Speaker 4: Like there's a lot of chain restaurants, there's only one
Speaker 4: that serves lobster.
Speaker 1: And crab the way we do.
Speaker 4: So we are a chain restaurant, that is what it is,
Speaker 4: but the but the product is unique, and so it's
Speaker 4: focusing a bit more on the product. Where you're gonna
Speaker 4: get crabed? What chain restaurant're gonna get grea crab? What
Speaker 4: chain restaurant are you going to get.
Speaker 1: Some of our?
Speaker 4: Like you know, we've got this lobster parpadel that just
Speaker 4: came out that nobody has that what the hell is that?
Speaker 1: That's not? Lobster parade is amazing?
Speaker 4: Came out in November, right, So we're doing some new
Speaker 4: things on the menu using lobster and crab mostly, so
Speaker 4: it's folks, it's it becomes a The differentiator for us
Speaker 4: is product, and I want it to be serviced to hospitality.
Speaker 1: And once you if we went on those two, then
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay.
Speaker 4: It's not just a chain restaurant because it's got something
Speaker 4: that you can't get anywhere else, and it's got a
Speaker 4: feeling that you can't find anywhere else. And I feel
Speaker 4: like family when I get there, and I want to
Speaker 4: come back, like these are the things you can separate
Speaker 4: yourself on.
Speaker 6: And then some of y'all had some like y'all we're
Speaker 6: working with costam egos like running some promotions where y'all
Speaker 6: had like that's good too, I mean because that that's
Speaker 6: like the drink right now, So.
Speaker 4: A Snoop Dog we're talking to him about his new
Speaker 4: gin drink, right and so yeah, there's opportunities for co branding.
Speaker 4: And we've got Blake Griffin right now in our ads.
Speaker 4: He's dunking lobster into butter. If anybody's curious, you can
Speaker 4: you can look that up. But uh, but yeah, partnerships
Speaker 4: are key right at a bar, and when they got
Speaker 4: the bar's got that exactly and yeah, getting the right partnerships,
Speaker 4: right like people who uh because you want to be
Speaker 4: more relevant mm hmm.
Speaker 5: But like he just said, like you know, I didn't
Speaker 5: even know there was a bar red Lobster because that's
Speaker 5: not what people think about when they go watch the game, right,
Speaker 5: they don't think about going to red Lobster.
Speaker 2: And now those were some of the things that happened
Speaker 2: because when.
Speaker 1: We were young, like when we were going to Red
Speaker 1: loftter we were young, were a drink, right, so we
Speaker 1: didn't drink. We didn't think, but we don't think about that.
Speaker 6: Now you know they were running the ass though it
Speaker 6: was commercials they had Like that's how that's how you're
Speaker 6: seeing anything about the costs.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, what did you ad?
Speaker 1: What I didn't?
Speaker 3: I never saw the cos I wanted to watch TV.
Speaker 1: And be honest, I'm serious because.
Speaker 3: To that point, I've seen the new partnership with Popeye
Speaker 3: and Don Julio, but I never remember seeing the con But.
Speaker 6: Be honest, you've seen that because the girls on line,
Speaker 6: because the videos are going viral with them like acting
Speaker 6: like it's a section. You can't if we're trying to
Speaker 6: get back to five star.
Speaker 7: Feeling real life. We can't have no sections, no bottom
Speaker 7: girls coming out.
Speaker 1: There's things you can do, right. We launched that happy hour,
Speaker 1: right and like a happy hour is a simple thing.
Speaker 4: It's just you know, the same drinks or different drinks,
Speaker 4: but discounted at a certain time. Come three to six,
Speaker 4: get drinks for five bucks, is what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you get your beer, wine.
Speaker 4: Cocktail five bucks discount on the appetizers. So now we
Speaker 4: need to message that more, you know, to the point
Speaker 4: like people need to know that. But but we launched that,
Speaker 4: and you know, so I got here. We're doing a
Speaker 4: lot right, So that came out in November too. So
Speaker 4: we want to be a place where you can come
Speaker 4: hang out at the bar, have a drink, have fun,
Speaker 4: have a full dinner. It's like, uh, you know, it's
Speaker 4: fancy food, but it's an approachable feeling. Right. You don't
Speaker 4: need to wear a suit, you know, to come to
Speaker 4: to come to dinner, right, come, it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 4: we serve all people.
Speaker 2: Did you stop the endless shrinp promotion? It's done, so
Speaker 2: no more endless shrip jes dare you got a messed
Speaker 2: up now?
Speaker 3: But by the way, that was the dumb welln't a
Speaker 3: dumb promotion, But don't promise people in less shrimp because
Speaker 3: y'all never give in.
Speaker 1: It was a challenge. I know people who tried. They
Speaker 1: don't know if you put a cap on it. He's tried.
Speaker 1: I've been in the restaurants when they put a cap
Speaker 1: on the end the shrimp.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, the way it was done didn't work.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying it'll never be done, but it'll be
Speaker 4: done in a way that's that's more sensible.
Speaker 3: What's sensible because you guys, I'm gonna tell you what
Speaker 3: people will do. Going there with four people, one person
Speaker 3: order endless shrimp and they just keep bringing mass shrimp
Speaker 3: for the table.
Speaker 1: That's that's insensible.
Speaker 4: I mean it is so Look, I mean these promotions
Speaker 4: people do promotions like this Olive Garden does a and
Speaker 4: unless positive promotion like people do these.
Speaker 1: Lives is a lie. They will put a cap on
Speaker 1: your fat ass, but different because it fills you up
Speaker 1: so fast and it's cheap, and it's cheap, so they
Speaker 1: can do that. So you just need to the math
Speaker 1: needs to needs to make sense.
Speaker 4: Endless biscuits still, if you want more biscuits, they will
Speaker 4: give you more biscuits.
Speaker 1: We bring out six to the table. The biscuits. Biscuits
Speaker 1: we can give you because when you eat them in
Speaker 1: drink that water.
Speaker 4: Well. So this biscuits are amazing, right, and people love
Speaker 4: them and it's an easy thing for us to do.
Speaker 4: So you know, that's an example of being hospitable. You know,
Speaker 4: not every table's gon to get endle this biscuits. But
Speaker 4: if you were asked your server, it could have more biscus.
Speaker 4: And're not going to say no.
Speaker 1: You allowed to tell its the truth about the endless shrimp.
Speaker 1: Tellus the truth it was. It never was endless. It
Speaker 1: was endless. We put them out of business, and and
Speaker 1: why did it come to an end?
Speaker 4: Look, let me say this. I can't get too much
Speaker 4: into it.
Speaker 1: I'll say this. The previous owner of the business was
Speaker 1: the shrimp supplier to the business. Mmm, he's double dipping
Speaker 1: shrimp cut off. So the math is different.
Speaker 4: Got you If you're strictly thinking about the business versus
Speaker 4: also thinking about the supply chain the shrimp supplier, then
Speaker 4: it's different math. Right, So I'm thinking just about the
Speaker 4: business right now the supplier is no longer involved.
Speaker 3: It often seems like they want to put black people
Speaker 3: in the CEO positions when the company is like messed up, right,
Speaker 3: So why did you want this job? Especially at the
Speaker 3: time Red Lobster was going through bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: So I did the work before.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm an ambitious person and i'm and I'm young
Speaker 4: for the position. I had a lot of success that changed,
Speaker 4: but even that when I took over was not looking good.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's I think the brand is worth saving.
Speaker 4: I think it can be saved. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: things that need to be done. But I've got the
Speaker 4: energy and I've got you know, I'm dedicating the time.
Speaker 1: We hired a great team.
Speaker 4: So for me, it's it's Look, there's it's a great
Speaker 4: iconic brand. There's thirty thousand people that work for the company.
Speaker 4: If we can save it, that's a good thing for
Speaker 4: the country. It's a good thing for the people that
Speaker 4: work there. It's a good thing for the people that
Speaker 4: have history going there. Right, So it's it's it's it's
Speaker 4: not gonna it's not easy, but it's doable, and why
Speaker 4: not why not try to try to see if we
Speaker 4: can get this done?
Speaker 3: How do you know when the back wouldn't step out
Speaker 3: because you know, you was with PF Chang for four
Speaker 3: years for all, Why did you step down?
Speaker 2: That's a big question. Yeahy did you leave Pfchangs? Well,
Speaker 2: we more or.
Speaker 4: Less achieved the objectives that we set out to achieve initially.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was I had a I was
Speaker 4: also involved on the on the finance side, right, I
Speaker 4: was working at a hedge fund.
Speaker 1: So I went back to the private equity side to.
Speaker 4: Look at the opportunity to do something similar because we learned,
Speaker 4: we learned a lot doing that, and we felt like
Speaker 4: we could we could do that again, right with a
Speaker 4: different brand.
Speaker 1: And then the.
Speaker 4: Fortress Group reached out and and we went. We worked
Speaker 4: with them on Red Lobster. But PF Chang's is a
Speaker 4: great business. This is about twice the size of PF
Speaker 4: Changs in terms of sales and maybe three exercise in
Speaker 4: terms of footprint. So it's a bigger challenge, it's a
Speaker 4: bigger opportunity. You know, a lot of life is calculated risk, right,
Speaker 4: and it's you know, it's hard to really build something
Speaker 4: without taking some chances along the way, right, There's no
Speaker 4: guarantee that you're gonna be there's no guarantee when I
Speaker 4: took over the PF Changs world that i'd be successful.
Speaker 4: But if I was, you know, it'd be great for
Speaker 4: a lot of people. And we work same thing here.
Speaker 4: If we're successful here, this is you know, this is
Speaker 4: an iconic brand that we brought back from bankruptcy and
Speaker 4: hopefully turn into a thriving company for decades to come.
Speaker 1: Right, So that that to me is worth it's worth
Speaker 1: it's worth going for. So why did you do that? James?
Speaker 1: Just we were just basically done one.
Speaker 4: We're ready to you know, once you turned them around,
Speaker 4: once the owners decide that it's time to do something,
Speaker 4: you know, they we turned it around and eventually you know,
Speaker 4: without commenting on their situation, but they're going to do
Speaker 4: different things from an ownership perspective, right, So it's uh,
Speaker 4: it was like behind the scenes convos, right, but nothing
Speaker 4: to do with the business.
Speaker 3: So then just the mind state of being you know
Speaker 3: who you are, like, you know, they they'll hire you,
Speaker 3: put you in these positions, you'll turn them around and
Speaker 3: you'll move on to the No no.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it depends on the situation.
Speaker 4: If it's if it's a group, for example, Fortresses willing
Speaker 4: to invest and do the work to turn this business around.
Speaker 4: And if that's the case, then I can be successful.
Speaker 4: But you need that alignment ownership and operator. When ownership
Speaker 4: takes a different perspective, for example, we want to manage cost,
Speaker 4: let's say, or we want to you know, cut certain things,
Speaker 4: we want to stop investing in certain things. If I
Speaker 4: disagree with that and I go executed, then I'm responsible
Speaker 4: for the result. So on some level, you just need
Speaker 4: to agree with what ownership wants to do. And ownership
Speaker 4: owns a business. If you disagree to you either gotta leave,
Speaker 4: right not the people that own the business. So to
Speaker 4: the extent that you know, look, every CEO is either
Speaker 4: gonna resign or get fired one day. That's how CEO
Speaker 4: job's in. You don't get promoted, you know, from that.
Speaker 4: So for me, it's as long as things are aligned,
Speaker 4: it makes sense.
Speaker 1: But you don't. I don't want.
Speaker 4: It's not wise to be in a situation where you
Speaker 4: don't agree with the plan and you're responsible for implementing
Speaker 4: the plan. Because if you think something's not gonna work
Speaker 4: and you do it and it doesn't work like you
Speaker 4: thought it was like you, like you you predicted and
Speaker 4: it's you're still gonna get blamed.
Speaker 2: Change.
Speaker 5: Do you change the target audience for red labster. I'm
Speaker 5: just thinking about it now, right, And anytime you usually
Speaker 5: see a red Lobsters in neighborhoods, right, it's in queens
Speaker 5: in areas where it's usually middle class or poorer. But
Speaker 5: when I look at PF Chain's, it's a little different.
Speaker 5: It's a lot different.
Speaker 1: Actually, do you.
Speaker 5: Change your audience or is that the case, because especially
Speaker 5: with the world now, a lot of people are not
Speaker 5: making the money as they were before and they're struggling,
Speaker 5: so which means in those areas they're gonna be struggling
Speaker 5: to come to red lobster.
Speaker 4: You mean the demographics of where the restaurants are.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: So, it's tricky to move your restaurant footprint because you
Speaker 4: have long leases and the footprint kind of is what
Speaker 4: it is. Some come up for renewal every year, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But for the most part, what we can do is
Speaker 4: so value is an interest, So value is an equation.
Speaker 4: Part of it is price, and you can get some
Speaker 4: things on the menu that are lower priced. For example,
Speaker 4: the lobster roles are great if you want lobster and
Speaker 4: you want it for twenty bucks, We've got the lobster
Speaker 4: role in certain markets for that price. At the same time,
Speaker 4: values what you get for the price. So if you
Speaker 4: improve what you get, then you improve value. So if
Speaker 4: hospitality is way better and the food is interesting and
Speaker 4: the drinks are fun, and you pay the same price,
Speaker 4: but all of that is better, people will perceive that
Speaker 4: as better value. So value is important, but we approach
Speaker 4: it from both ends. Improve the product and then give
Speaker 4: people entry level things that you can get for twenty
Speaker 4: bucks fifteen bucks. You know, we have Shrimp your Way
Speaker 4: for you know, sixteen ninety nine for two types of shrimp.
Speaker 4: There's things you can do that are approachable if you
Speaker 4: don't want to do the full lobster for it for
Speaker 4: a higher price. Right So, I'm looking at the lobsters
Speaker 4: me and you right now, I go lot. I might
Speaker 4: go around last this week, and I'm not I might
Speaker 4: take send me. I'm like, I never took my kids
Speaker 4: the red loss never. And I'm like, you know, may
Speaker 4: like me in the white list. Take the kids the
Speaker 4: red lobster just to see what they know what for you. No,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna tell you I'm going, but I'm gonna
Speaker 4: tell you.
Speaker 3: I know exactly which one I'm going to too, what
Speaker 3: you're going to to you know when I'm going to
Speaker 3: go on.
Speaker 1: Yep, but that one looks a little bit up though
Speaker 1: it looks a lot beat up. But I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you something.
Speaker 3: That's why I was just asking that question. They don't
Speaker 3: look I laugh it every morning and in my mind,
Speaker 3: you know, you just thinking nostalgia. I'm like, damn, yo,
Speaker 3: back in the day when I was young, that have
Speaker 3: been perfect. The hotel right there, the red Lobster right there,
Speaker 3: you go, right, the red.
Speaker 1: Still perfect, man, it's still perfect motel.
Speaker 3: But think about when you were seventeen eighteen, that'd have
Speaker 3: been perfect, right well, think about.
Speaker 7: When Beyonce said it in the song yes Me Good,
Speaker 7: I take as you Red Lobster.
Speaker 1: What did that do for the same Did y'all capitalize
Speaker 1: on this? Yes, I was here, Oh that was before me.
Speaker 3: It's not too late though, right right, because it's not
Speaker 3: too late for that. Even when Riley mentioned it on
Speaker 3: The Boon Doctors.
Speaker 4: You know, the Kelsey Brothers did something with that. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, part of the part of the game is
Speaker 4: to is to take advantage of cultural moments, right, like
Speaker 4: when something happens in the culture, like you want to
Speaker 4: be on it, so that that's something that we weren't
Speaker 4: very good at in the past and we need to
Speaker 4: get better.
Speaker 1: After sure, did you even talk to him about that? Like,
Speaker 1: did anybody reach out to beyond you know, I can't
Speaker 1: speak to that and I wasn't here.
Speaker 4: But but for example, Flavor Flavor we did, right fat
Speaker 4: wanted to save the you know, wanted to save Red Lobster.
Speaker 4: They you know, we did a promotion with them. So
Speaker 4: there's it's it's important for sure. And uh yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean look now Kelsey Billers reach out, we respond the
Speaker 4: same day, right like, so we're we're engaging and it's important.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm so impressed by you because I mean, number one,
Speaker 3: you get young, you're thirty six and you're from Nigeria.
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering, like, what are the challenges you know,
Speaker 3: being so young as the CEO. Do people take you
Speaker 3: as serious as they should in the business that you're in?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I think you know the best thing
Speaker 4: you can do to accrue the respect you want is
Speaker 4: to just be a person worthy of respect, right Like
Speaker 4: if you behave, if you behave the right if you
Speaker 4: develop yourself a certain way and you behave the right
Speaker 4: way and you're a serious person, and.
Speaker 1: That's obvious, people will they will respect you. It's it's natural.
Speaker 4: People know, right if they meet you and they don't
Speaker 4: feel subconsciously like your a person deserving a respect and
Speaker 4: will give it to you, especially if you're like but
Speaker 4: I'm black.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, but you.
Speaker 4: Can overcome all that just by being a person that's
Speaker 4: clearly worthy of respect. And then you know that goes
Speaker 4: out the window, like I don't, I don't have issues.
Speaker 4: If I sit down with somebody for thirty minutes, they
Speaker 4: don't leave feeling like, you know, he's not serious, or
Speaker 4: he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he's not intelligent,
Speaker 4: or he can't communicate.
Speaker 1: At the end of it, you know they're fine.
Speaker 4: So yeah, maybe before but you know, you talk to somebody,
Speaker 4: you know they know they people know, they understand, right,
Speaker 4: and so they don't.
Speaker 7: Know that asks about me, man, I'm asks about me.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just it's just it's just I was.
Speaker 4: You know, you're not born as a finished product. It's
Speaker 4: all about development.
Speaker 1: So if you if you work you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I said, they may be joined the speech in the
Speaker 1: Bay team in high.
Speaker 7: School, you're that guy can send that guy really well.
Speaker 4: Now, but that's been a working process, right, you know
Speaker 4: I played football growing up through high school college.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Maybe it makes you strong physically, we know what it
Speaker 4: does makes you strong mentally. This is what you got
Speaker 4: to wake up six am every day.
Speaker 1: You gotta go train.
Speaker 4: You got so you learn things right and that becomes
Speaker 4: part of your character. You know, the emotional discipline that's
Speaker 4: important too, and you learn that. So if you spend
Speaker 4: your life building these skills, you will become a person
Speaker 4: that has these skills.
Speaker 1: And that is what people respect.
Speaker 3: How the weaponization of DEI impacted you if at all
Speaker 3: the people say, oh, he's a de I higher.
Speaker 1: No, I've just been so successful throughout my life. I
Speaker 1: don't get that. I mean you could take you know.
Speaker 4: For me, it goes back to early early I aim
Speaker 4: to excel at everything I do, and there's very little
Speaker 4: evidence of me not excelling at anything that I've tried
Speaker 4: to do, from football to Brown to Goldman to TVG
Speaker 4: to Harvard to Paul Like, there's no real l's on
Speaker 4: the not saying I won't fail it anything, and I
Speaker 4: have failed at plenty.
Speaker 1: Let's go talk to them coaches. Well, there's a record
Speaker 1: out there somewhere that's funny. Nobody talking about that's the
Speaker 1: fair funt.
Speaker 4: But you know, and I'm not saying that to but
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, you can build a habit of excellence
Speaker 4: and that that's how that's how you'll be viewed. Right,
Speaker 4: and so I think anybody can achieve. You just have
Speaker 4: to build these habits. Yeah, right, So it's really more
Speaker 4: motivation to people who were listening.
Speaker 1: Was coming from Nigeria.
Speaker 3: You know, you say your dad was a neurologists, a
Speaker 3: reagi mom was a pharmacist where they have said, you
Speaker 3: didn't stay in like that that field in some way
Speaker 3: shape or for him.
Speaker 4: Like my parents were always just like, whatever you do,
Speaker 4: just be the best at it. That was that's all
Speaker 4: they ever cared about. When when I when we got
Speaker 4: to America, we went to we lived in Springfield, Illinois.
Speaker 4: I remember we went to go get a haircut and
Speaker 4: the barber, Barbier's name was Fresh, the barber, and Fresh
Speaker 4: was driving an S Class Benz.
Speaker 1: Even though it's a barber and Nigeria. That's unheard of, right,
Speaker 1: a barber driving a Benz.
Speaker 4: But my dad's point when we saw that was in America,
Speaker 4: if you're the best at whatever you do, whatever it is,
Speaker 4: you can do really well, you can have a nice life,
Speaker 4: you can build.
Speaker 1: Something for yourself.
Speaker 4: They were just like, what you choose whatever you want,
Speaker 4: but aimed to be the best at it, right, which
Speaker 4: I think is good advice because people have different interests.
Speaker 4: Not everybody's gonna be care about finance. Not everybody is
Speaker 4: good enough at math to do that. But you might
Speaker 4: be good at something else, you know, whether you might
Speaker 4: start a podcast, maybe you're very good at interviewing people,
Speaker 4: you're very good speaker. You might find some other interest,
Speaker 4: music or whatever. Right, But whatever you do, if you
Speaker 4: if you if you build a mentality that I'm my
Speaker 4: goal is to be the best at it, then you're
Speaker 4: gonna do all right.
Speaker 1: I like this too, man, because it's clear you understand culture.
Speaker 3: Because I can't think of I'm trying to think, who
Speaker 3: have any CEOs and any restaurants come here? I'm really
Speaker 3: trying to think besides Carbone, Oh, Carbone comes in alone.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say no because We've been doing
Speaker 3: it for four years, but is the first that I
Speaker 3: can remember?
Speaker 1: And why is this important to do? Why is it
Speaker 1: important to do? You know, media?
Speaker 4: You got to get the word out, you know, people,
Speaker 4: people need to people don't. I live this every day,
Speaker 4: so I know everything we're doing, but most people don't.
Speaker 4: So somebody's got to tell them.
Speaker 2: Difficult Do they listen to you? Is that difficult? Do
Speaker 2: they listen to? I get?
Speaker 4: I get people listen when I when I if I
Speaker 4: do like a CNN R you know, I did a
Speaker 4: c AN interview, I did a Today's Show interview, or
Speaker 4: I did a Wall Street Journal interview, and those get
Speaker 4: a lot of views. I think people are curious, right, like,
Speaker 4: what's what's going on with this guy? Right, thirty six
Speaker 4: year old CEO? Like, you know, black guy, What's what's up?
Speaker 4: And so they want to there's a curiosity there. But
Speaker 4: that that's fine because that creates attention for the business,
Speaker 4: which what I what I mostly care about, and it
Speaker 4: will please And then what was.
Speaker 6: Good about it is you get to hear what people want,
Speaker 6: like you know, you like, we're talking to you about
Speaker 6: what hour?
Speaker 4: And you guys represent the culture right because you guys speak.
Speaker 4: You guys speak for the culture in a way that
Speaker 4: not a lot of people do. You talk to viewers
Speaker 4: all the time. You hear what people are listening to,
Speaker 4: You see what people are engaging with, what parts of
Speaker 4: the segment. So you guys know, right, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: for sure, it's helpful for me to hear, and it's
Speaker 4: helpful to have a platform to speak and talk about
Speaker 4: some of.
Speaker 1: The things that that we're working on. I do feel
Speaker 1: like there is a room for like just smaller locations.
Speaker 3: Like if I'm sitting here at the radio station and
Speaker 3: I want to go to lunch, but I don't want
Speaker 3: to sit somewhere like I just want to run in
Speaker 3: gravel lobster and shrimp ball real quick. I feel like
Speaker 3: there's room for that because you got food trucks that
Speaker 3: got these lobster.
Speaker 1: Rolls and everything else.
Speaker 4: For sure, if I started the company today, they wouldn't
Speaker 4: be as big as they are. You know, if I
Speaker 4: could stab my finger and shrink all of them, you
Speaker 4: probably would. They were built for a different time now.
Speaker 4: A lot of the business is off premise. It's a
Speaker 4: lot of grabbing growth. So my point is that we're
Speaker 4: kind of stuck with the footprint, right.
Speaker 3: It's not you reach out as a as an African
Speaker 3: out here right now, who's trying to shrink everything namee
Speaker 3: of the Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Show. The way of doing right.
Speaker 4: The real estate is is not impossible to change, but
Speaker 4: it's harder to change and it's expensive to change. If
Speaker 4: you want to get out of the lease, you need
Speaker 4: to pay the landlord how many years you got left,
Speaker 4: how many how many dollars per year times that by
Speaker 4: thirty percent is probably what.
Speaker 1: You owe them. And then you got to build a
Speaker 1: new restaurant. You know that's that's a few million dollars
Speaker 1: per per unit. So it's it's it's it's a thing
Speaker 1: that you would do. You just need to.
Speaker 4: You have limited capital. You got to make decisions. What's
Speaker 4: what comes first?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: But for sure, if if if you were starting this
Speaker 4: company all over, you wouldn't have as big. And that
Speaker 4: was true for PF Changs too. You know PF Changs
Speaker 4: was eight nine thousand square feet. The new ones we
Speaker 4: built were four or five thousand square feet, and you'd
Speaker 4: probably do the same thing here. And these are bigger,
Speaker 4: you know, these are closer to ten thousand. So it's
Speaker 4: It's a good valid point, just a harder thing to fix.
Speaker 3: Quickly before you get out of it, because you already
Speaker 3: gave the CEO. Look back to your people to wrap
Speaker 3: it up. What's your involvement with HPCU. What's we're allowed
Speaker 3: to do with HPCU.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, so I mean before that, Darden the founder
Speaker 4: of Red Lobster, Bill Darden, who Darden Company is named after.
Speaker 4: That's Olive Garden, Texas, Longhorne, et cetera. So he's an
Speaker 4: important restaurant tour in American history. The first restaurant that
Speaker 4: he opened was Red Lobster, and that from the very beginning,
Speaker 4: had a really good relationship with the Black American community.
Speaker 4: This is in sixty eight, so at the very end
Speaker 4: of the Civil Rights movement, but from the very beginning,
Speaker 4: black people were welcome to eat there, welcome to work there.
Speaker 4: And that was stansit he took from the very beginning.
Speaker 4: So it's always had a good relationship with Black America
Speaker 4: from the start. You mentioned Beyonce mess flavor. Flav It's
Speaker 4: always had a position in culture. I'm just acknowledging it
Speaker 4: and speaking to it and and doing more for that
Speaker 4: to try to build that so HBCUs we did Band
Speaker 4: of the Year, right, We went to watch the band's
Speaker 4: perform B move one miles one for the junior division,
Speaker 4: and we gave the awards out. We sponsored it Red Lobster,
Speaker 4: and you know, millions of dollars went to scholarships and
Speaker 4: things like that.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna do more. You know.
Speaker 4: That's a start, but it's it's important community. It's one
Speaker 4: that has been connected to the brand for a long
Speaker 4: time and it's a good place to spend time and
Speaker 4: spend money on our behalf.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we appreciate you for joining us and
Speaker 2: bringing us some biscuits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, enjoy, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Whatever we can do to help, man, I mean, I
Speaker 3: want to see you succeed. I appreciate it if people
Speaker 3: like you succeed, and that just means more successful the rest.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, visit your local at Red Lobster. You guys, send
Speaker 4: feedback and we'll keep we'll.
Speaker 2: Keep improving going this week it Adam Loan, Yes, you
Speaker 2: know that. All right, there we go. It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club