Interview with Bar Rescue Star and Executive Producer Jon Taffer about defeating self doubt, keeping authenticity intact, and being in the reaction business.
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00:00 Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur.
00:03 My name is Sean Walchef, founder of Cali BBQ
00:06 and Cali BBQ Media.
00:08 In life, in the restaurant business
00:10 and in the new creator economy,
00:12 we learn through lessons and stories.
00:15 Today we have an extremely, extremely important guest
00:20 because the work that we do on this show,
00:23 we're so fortunate that just over a year and a half ago,
00:26 we launched with Entrepreneur Media,
00:28 Toast, our title sponsor, our technology partner
00:30 at our barbecue restaurants,
00:31 believes in the power of storytelling.
00:34 They gave us the opportunity to host this show
00:37 and because of this show,
00:38 we've reached over 25 million people.
00:40 But today's guest is one of the theses,
00:43 the theses of this show.
00:45 We have none other than Jon Taffer,
00:47 international celebrity, New York Times bestselling author,
00:50 highly sought after business consultant.
00:53 He is a creator, he is an executive producer
00:55 of Paramount's number one show, Bar Rescue,
00:59 a man that needs no introduction.
01:01 Jon, welcome to the show.
01:03 - Good to be here, buddy.
01:04 Nice to talk with you.
01:06 - First random question is where in the world
01:09 is your favorite stadium, stage or venue?
01:13 - Ooh, well, that would have to be for different things
01:15 'cause I'm an old nightclub guy.
01:17 Remember I ran the Troubadour and Pulsations
01:20 and a lot of nightclubs in the mega nightclub days.
01:24 So I would say my favorite venue right now
01:28 is T-Mobile in Las Vegas
01:29 because of the Golden Knights and the Stanley Cup.
01:31 So I'm pretty zeroed in on that one right now.
01:34 But I think that there's a lot of great venues
01:37 in the country.
01:37 I would say Tanglewood up in Massachusetts
01:39 is an outdoor venue, which I think is one of my favorite.
01:42 When I look at bars across the country,
01:45 some great historic bars,
01:47 Employees Only is a great example of one.
01:49 I look in Vegas at some of the venues like a Marquis,
01:52 $80 million a year, and XS and Wynn, $88 million a year.
01:57 The fantasy numbers that are achieved
02:01 in some of these venues,
02:02 particularly in my city here in Las Vegas is crazy.
02:06 But if I were to pick one venue
02:08 that is probably my favorite,
02:11 I would pick a venue that's meaningful historically.
02:15 And I would pick the Troubadour in Hollywood, California,
02:17 which I ran many, many years ago
02:19 only because Bruce Springsteen was discovered there,
02:21 Elton John was discovered there,
02:23 and all these famous artists came from there.
02:25 So that's a pretty special venue if we use the word venue.
02:29 - Beautiful.
02:29 So the Troubadour, how many people fit in the Troubadour?
02:32 - About 1,300.
02:33 There's an upstairs balcony and a downstairs area.
02:35 I used to run the Troubadour in the days of Black Flag,
02:38 Adam Ant, the Dead Kennedys, and all of those acts.
02:43 Even the Knack, My Sharona,
02:45 all that stuff was back when I ran the Troubadour
02:47 in those days.
02:48 Great historic venues like that matter.
02:50 Even the Whiskey A Go-Go was a great one.
02:52 CBGB's we lost in New York was another great one.
02:56 These historic venues mean something
02:57 because I came up in the business as a musician.
03:00 When you walk on a stage as a musician,
03:03 that means something.
03:04 It has a historic value to it.
03:06 It means something to the performer,
03:08 and that means something to the audience.
03:11 So I always lean towards historic venues
03:14 after those reasons.
03:15 - Okay, so we're gonna go to the Troubadour.
03:17 I'm gonna talk to Entrepreneur, I'm gonna talk to Toast,
03:19 I'm gonna talk to a bunch of sponsors,
03:21 but we're gonna get what we like to say
03:23 is the people that play the game within the game.
03:25 Anybody that listens to this podcast, watches this show,
03:28 no matter how you consume it, you want to level up.
03:30 You wanna get better at hospitality.
03:32 We have the best of the best on the stage.
03:34 I'm gonna bring you on stage.
03:36 And when I was growing up, I never met my father.
03:39 My grandfather raised me, he was a Bulgarian immigrant,
03:42 and he taught me three things,
03:43 and that was to stay curious, to get involved,
03:46 and to ask for help.
03:48 I'm gonna put you on stage.
03:49 I know you've given keynotes all over the world
03:51 to the biggest venues, biggest stages,
03:53 but I'm gonna ask you for one business story,
03:56 and I'm gonna fill the audience with not only the people
03:59 that are playing the game within the game,
04:00 but also their children and their grandchildren.
04:02 I know you recently became a grandfather.
04:05 Give me one of the greatest business stories,
04:08 and give me a lesson from that business story
04:10 to lead off this keynote for this conference
04:12 that we're hosting.
04:15 - Well, it would probably be not a restaurant story,
04:18 but a television story, if that's okay.
04:20 - Please.
04:21 - Because it impacted me so greatly.
04:22 I was giving a keynote address
04:24 for a food and beverage conference in Las Vegas,
04:27 and after the address in Caesars Palace,
04:29 somebody comes up to me and says,
04:30 "John, you should be on TV."
04:32 So I went home and I wrote this thing up called On the Rocks
04:36 and it was a cross between Kitchen Nightmares
04:38 and Mission Impossible.
04:40 So they would drop me into these failing bars
04:42 and restaurants, and I would pull out my files,
04:44 like Mission Impossible, and I would find my experts,
04:47 where I put the files down,
04:48 and then I would go save the place.
04:50 So I put this pitch together,
04:51 and years earlier I had consulted to Paramount
04:54 for Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.
04:56 So I had good relationships on the Paramount lot.
04:58 So I call my friends at Paramount,
05:00 they set me up with the head of TV
05:02 and all the Paramount people with TV.
05:03 I'm coming to pitch something,
05:05 they're being very nice to me
05:06 because of my previous relationship.
05:08 So I walk into the room and I say to them,
05:12 "Gentlemen, I appreciate you taking the time to meet me.
05:14 I wanna pitch you with an idea.
05:16 I'm not a TV guy, so all I wanna hear from you
05:19 is if this is worth me trying to put time into,
05:22 or if I should just move on and not do it at all."
05:24 They said, "Okay."
05:25 So I pitched them on my idea,
05:27 and do I have to use filtered language on this podcast?
05:30 - Absolutely not, this is an entrepreneur show.
05:32 - Excellent.
05:33 So they looked at me and they said,
05:35 "Quote, John, you will never fucking be on television.
05:40 You're not good looking enough, you're too old,
05:43 it will never happen."
05:45 And I drive out the gates of Paramount,
05:46 I'm pretty bummed out as you can imagine, right?
05:49 The big gate, pretty dramatic thing, I drive out.
05:51 And I think to myself,
05:53 they sell TV shows with three to four minutes sizzle reels.
05:57 Fuck 'em, I'm gonna go make my own sizzle reel.
06:00 So I went, I produced my own sizzle reel in a friend's bar,
06:02 it was empty on a Saturday afternoon,
06:04 packed on Sunday afternoon 'cause of football.
06:06 So I go there when it's empty,
06:08 I go there when it's full, look at what I did,
06:09 I put the sizzle reel together.
06:11 I send it out to four production companies
06:13 that I have no relationship with.
06:15 Zero.
06:16 Paramount I had a relationship with.
06:17 I send it to these four companies,
06:20 all four of them give me offers.
06:22 Four out of four.
06:23 So now I got offers for 90% of the profits, offers.
06:26 I've never been in the entertainment business before,
06:28 so I have to hire entertainment attorneys,
06:30 put the deal together.
06:31 I wound up signing with Three Ball Entertainment
06:33 who wasn't the best offer that I had,
06:36 but I felt they produced the best product.
06:38 They had a show called "The Biggest Loser" at the time,
06:40 they were very successful reality producers.
06:43 So I signed with them, that was 13 years ago.
06:46 Now 240 episodes later,
06:48 I still laugh with my Paramount friends over this.
06:52 And the full circle, the funniest part of it is,
06:55 Paramount said to me,
06:56 "You will never fucking be on television."
06:57 But what network am I on?
07:00 Paramount.
07:01 Here's the point to this story.
07:04 Two really powerful lessons.
07:06 Lesson one, the only person who can say no to you is you.
07:10 Don't ever forget that.
07:12 When we say yes to ourselves and somebody else says no,
07:16 it doesn't mean we need to flip to a no.
07:18 That's a personal decision.
07:20 Not sure risk management,
07:21 you take advice from the outside,
07:23 all those kinds of things,
07:23 but remember, because somebody else says no to you,
07:26 it doesn't mean it's no to you.
07:28 The next thing I think is a powerful lesson in this,
07:30 is the fact that I didn't go for the money,
07:32 I went for the quality.
07:34 I could have taken a richer deal,
07:36 but I took a deal with a company that would produce a product
07:39 so I had a long-term view on what I was doing
07:43 rather than a short-term hit for the cash.
07:46 And I think those two decisions,
07:48 not saying no and understanding
07:50 that I'm in control of this destiny
07:55 is what's put me here today.
07:57 - Huge news, Toast, our primary technology partner
08:00 at our barbecue restaurants in San Diego
08:02 and the primary technology partner
08:05 of so many of the guests that we have on this show
08:07 have announced they are expanding
08:10 their business offerings with Google.
08:12 So now if you search on Google Maps
08:15 and you sign up for Toast Tables or Toast Waitlist,
08:19 you will have the opportunity
08:21 to improve the digital hospitality experience of the guest,
08:25 allow them to book through the maps
08:27 into the Toast reservation system.
08:30 One of the biggest difficulties that restaurant guests have
08:34 is when they search for your restaurant
08:36 and they want a table,
08:37 they do not have an easy solution to book a table
08:40 or to get on a wait list.
08:42 This is huge news for the restaurant industry,
08:44 huge news for guests
08:46 and huge news for you, the restaurant owner.
08:49 Check out Toast Tables today
08:50 and find out the new integrated solution that they have.
08:54 This is something that we've wanted for a long time.
08:56 How do you integrate reservations,
08:59 wait lists into your point of sale?
09:01 Toast has done it, check it out.
09:03 - Can you bring us inside the media sausage, if you will?
09:07 How is the media made?
09:08 I mean, we're a barbecue business.
09:10 We have five barbecue locations here in San Diego.
09:13 We've turned ourselves into a media company.
09:15 Anyone can turn themselves into a media company.
09:17 That's essentially why we created this show.
09:19 But what you've done is at the highest level.
09:22 Bring us inside the unit economics of the deal
09:26 of how do you decide?
09:28 Because most people,
09:30 and the reason why I love your example
09:32 is that you're playing the game within the game.
09:34 You're not just the talent.
09:35 You're the business behind the talent
09:37 and what you've built in the last 13 years.
09:40 What have you learned today versus what you did before?
09:44 - Well, I think a couple of things are important to this.
09:46 One, I was successful before I went into the TV show.
09:50 So I didn't sell my soul.
09:52 I shut the show down in the fourth episode
09:54 because the producer wanted to throw a ketchup
09:57 written Tampax on a bathroom floor.
09:59 Wanted to do something fake.
10:00 I shut the production down,
10:02 told the network VP to go fuck himself.
10:04 It was a serious issue.
10:06 The show almost shut down and I would have shut it down
10:08 if they continued to have me do anything fake.
10:11 So I was lucky.
10:12 I had a deal with the network that it would be real.
10:15 I had an understanding with the network
10:16 that if it wasn't real, I would walk away
10:18 'cause my brand still meant a lot to me before I was on TV.
10:22 And then I think the next aspect of it is authenticity.
10:25 I'm me.
10:27 I'm no different talking to you now than I am on TV.
10:30 That's really important.
10:31 No matter what we do in a content world,
10:33 authenticity is critical.
10:36 Now, keeping it authentic is a real challenge
10:38 in the TV business 'cause the network wants to know
10:41 exactly what they're getting before they get it.
10:43 John goes here, fights with people,
10:45 turns it into a sports bar.
10:46 John goes here, fights with people,
10:48 turns it into an Italian restaurant.
10:50 So they wanna know.
10:51 The fact is, I don't know what I'm gonna do
10:53 until I get there.
10:54 So there's a real issue there.
10:56 Trust.
10:58 It took me a year in the first season of "Bar Rescue"
11:00 for the network to really trust my decision-making.
11:03 Now, I haven't had a network executive on set
11:06 in 150 episodes.
11:09 There's no predetermined script, no actors, no anything.
11:12 I'll give you the inside scoop of how it works in a moment.
11:14 But the fact of the matter is that the trick is authenticity.
11:19 So I created a term called shadow production.
11:24 On TV shows, there's story producers and line,
11:26 there's all these people running around
11:28 doing all these things.
11:29 They're not allowed to interact
11:31 with the employees of the bar.
11:32 And that's incredibly unusual.
11:34 Every other show, the producers tell them where to stand,
11:37 where to go, what to do.
11:38 And the host walks in and does his thing.
11:41 In those scenarios, the employees of the restaurant
11:44 think they're accountable to production, not the host.
11:48 It's not real.
11:50 In my show, they have no relationship with production.
11:53 I tell them where to go, where to stand, what to do.
11:55 Everything comes from me.
11:57 They have a relationship with me, not production.
12:01 They're accountable to me, not production.
12:04 At the end of a show, if my story,
12:06 if the cast or the restaurant owners,
12:08 we call them cast, but they're just employees.
12:10 If they know the names of my producers
12:12 at the end of an episode, those producers blew it.
12:15 They got too close to those people.
12:17 So that's the trick is to do that.
12:19 Now, if you don't know where you're going
12:21 and what you're doing,
12:22 you better be a pretty darn good television host
12:24 'cause there's no script, there's no one leading you there.
12:28 So here's the process that happens.
12:30 We have a casting company that casts the show.
12:32 I create standards.
12:34 I like an owner, a manager, and a staff.
12:37 I don't just like an owner and a staff.
12:39 I like management 'cause I like to have an owner be an owner,
12:42 a manager be a manager, and a staff be a staff.
12:45 I like that delineation.
12:47 So you'll find most episodes that I do
12:49 tend to have ownership and management,
12:51 not just ownership and employees.
12:53 I like a kitchen, very, very important.
12:55 We can do bars without kitchens.
12:56 There's a lot of them out there,
12:58 but kitchens are very, very important
12:59 to operations process and stress
13:02 and pace and energy and all of those issues.
13:05 So a kitchen is a critical element to the show.
13:07 And then I like a certain amount of employees.
13:10 Other than that, I'll go anywhere.
13:12 So we have a production company that has those standards.
13:15 And that production company goes out and finds locations.
13:19 They go to those locations.
13:20 They shoot about a five or seven minute casting reel,
13:24 just shows the personality of the employees.
13:25 They sit them in barstools, ask them some questions,
13:28 pretty quick stuff.
13:29 Those casting reels, I never see.
13:31 I don't wanna see.
13:33 They go to the network for approval.
13:35 They're approved at the network.
13:36 So when I show up at these bars,
13:39 I never even heard their name before.
13:41 I've never been there before.
13:42 I know nothing about these people.
13:45 The day I show up, and you'll find this interesting,
13:48 and there's a real lesson for our industry in this.
13:51 The day I show up, it's about 4.35 in the afternoon.
13:54 I sit in a makeup chair, they do my hair,
13:55 they powder me up.
13:56 While I'm in that chair,
13:58 I get about a 60 second briefing from my show runner.
14:01 John, this bar is owned by Sally and George.
14:03 They're ready to kill each other.
14:05 They're about to get divorced.
14:06 They've lost their house.
14:07 They're gonna lose their car.
14:09 They're in debt $400,000.
14:11 They're losing 10,000 a month.
14:12 They have enough money for two more weeks.
14:14 That's all I know.
14:16 How far in debt they are,
14:17 what the situation is between the partners,
14:20 how long they have.
14:21 That's it.
14:22 I go in and do recon.
14:24 I don't know what's gonna happen.
14:25 I walk in, if they're nice, I'm nice.
14:27 If they're not nice, I'm not nice.
14:29 If I see filth and things that insult me,
14:31 that would insult you too,
14:33 I get angry at those kinds of things.
14:35 You wanna lose money?
14:36 That's up to you.
14:37 You wanna get people sick?
14:38 That's a different issue.
14:39 I'm gonna go at you for that.
14:40 So I go in, whatever happens at recon happens at recon.
14:44 Here's what you don't know.
14:45 At the end of recon,
14:47 we put all the employees in the ownership
14:49 in vans in the parking lot.
14:51 And I go into the bar and I design it that night.
14:54 I'm given a demographic report,
14:56 psychographics, understanding the demographics,
14:59 economic makeup of the community.
15:01 I'm given a competitive assessment document,
15:03 which I've designed, which tells me in a minute
15:06 what competitors are in the area,
15:07 what concepts, what price points.
15:09 So I have that demographic, psychographic
15:11 and competitive information.
15:13 I then look at the room.
15:14 I have verticals I can attach to,
15:16 horizontals I can attach to,
15:18 windows, no windows.
15:19 Where's the bar?
15:19 Where's this?
15:20 I got about a half hour to come up with a concept
15:23 and a complete design.
15:25 I do it that night.
15:27 We go home.
15:28 The next day on TV, you see training and stress test.
15:31 What you don't see is I'm finishing up the design elements.
15:34 So my team is working with me,
15:35 showing me bar stools, wallpapers, furniture, packages,
15:38 finishes, everything.
15:40 But I need it all within 24 hours.
15:44 So I'll tell you a funny thing.
15:45 If you look at Bar Rescue carefully at the reveals,
15:47 you'll notice very often the chairs
15:49 and the bar stools don't match.
15:51 It's because I can't get 60 bar stools in 24 hours,
15:54 but I can get 12 of this and six of those and nine of these.
15:57 So getting it that quick is a real challenge.
16:00 At the end of the second day, when stress test is over,
16:03 the logos are at the sign company.
16:05 The recipes are done.
16:06 The orders are in the Cisco.
16:08 The orders are into the beverage distributors.
16:10 The uniform order is done.
16:12 The plates and the service ware is all designed.
16:14 The bar design is done.
16:15 The interior design is done.
16:17 The stools, the wall, everything is ordered.
16:19 Everything is done by the second day.
16:22 At the end of stress test,
16:24 my team goes in and we start remodeling.
16:26 We do remodel it in 36 hours.
16:28 So in the night from day two to the afternoon of day four,
16:33 we're in remodeling.
16:34 That's why day three in Bar Rescue, I train offsite
16:39 'cause we're remodeling at the location.
16:41 On the fourth day at about five o'clock in the afternoon,
16:45 I show up to a final walkthrough with my team.
16:47 I might change something, modify something,
16:48 move this, change that.
16:50 I don't like this color.
16:50 It didn't work.
16:51 We do that.
16:52 We'll do a couple of hours worth of changes and modifications.
16:54 And then those same white vans pull in the parking lot
16:57 with the cast and blindfolds.
16:59 We line them up in front and they see the bar.
17:01 So really I spend maybe 20 hours with them tops.
17:05 You know, I have an hour to design the bar,
17:07 an hour to get the menu done,
17:09 get the food orders and the logos done.
17:10 So I ask our industry a question.
17:13 What the fuck takes you guys so long to do anything?
17:16 (laughing)
17:17 Weeks of menu development, weeks of design.
17:20 I got a test, I got this.
17:21 Meeting after meeting, discussion after discussion.
17:24 Sometimes guys, time is money.
17:28 And if there's anything I've learned from Bar Rescue,
17:30 it's that everything we do as an industry
17:33 takes way too long.
17:35 - Urgency.
17:38 - Let's get to it.
17:38 I agree with you.
17:39 Urgency and intent.
17:41 - Correct.
17:42 - Speaking of urgency and intent,
17:43 I wanna talk about internet storytelling.
17:46 As somebody that's built his brand,
17:48 I'm gonna give you some numbers here.
17:49 So your Facebook account, 687,000 followers,
17:53 Instagram, 386,000, TikTok, 1.5 million,
17:56 Twitter, 255,000, YouTube, 8,000.
17:59 If you add in Bar Rescue, their handle,
18:02 if you add in Taffer's Brown Butter Bourbon,
18:05 if you add in Taffer's Tavern,
18:06 we're talking about over 5 million followers
18:09 just on social media alone.
18:11 We're talking about Taffer Media.
18:14 Bring me in to your relationship with social media,
18:18 where it started with Facebook and then Instagram,
18:21 and now we're at TikTok and podcasting
18:24 to where you see it going.
18:26 - Well, you know, it's interesting.
18:28 The one number you didn't put on there is the TV number.
18:30 So Bar Rescue has 138 million unique viewers this year.
18:35 - Wow. - Unique viewers.
18:36 So that's a lot of eyeballs.
18:38 - Wow. - So obviously,
18:40 that helps feed my social media.
18:41 It would be unreasonable not to show that as-
18:44 - Thank you. - As the backbone
18:45 that feeds so much of what I do.
18:48 It's authenticity.
18:49 I'm the same guy on social media that I am on television.
18:53 If somebody says something to me on social media,
18:55 I'll give it right back to them.
18:57 I have no insults, throwing them out.
18:58 I have no problem calling them out.
19:00 I have no problem defending myself.
19:01 I try to be honest all the time,
19:04 and I try to be authentic all the time.
19:06 I think the secret to social media is,
19:08 you know, I just did VCon,
19:10 and I have a lot of respect for Gary and Gary Vee
19:15 and his social media prowess
19:16 and how he's been able to cultivate
19:18 such a powerful business without TV, without radio,
19:22 without those backbones that I have.
19:25 And I think it's simple.
19:27 Social media has to give people something.
19:30 I have to benefit from the 15 seconds that I give you.
19:34 Your restaurant can't be the one that benefits.
19:36 I'm not gonna come back.
19:37 I'm not here to hear about your restaurant.
19:39 I'm here to hear about something that means something to me.
19:42 - Correct.
19:42 - You know, when we do Taffer's Tavern
19:44 or we do my brown butter bourbon,
19:46 it's always giving them something,
19:47 a recipe, an idea, something.
19:49 You know, we used to do something years ago.
19:50 I don't know why I stopped it.
19:51 I probably should start again.
19:52 It was called Wednesday Wisdom.
19:55 And we just gave them one quote every Wednesday.
19:57 Had a huge following.
19:58 We did Taffer Takes during the evolutionary process,
20:01 which was just opinionated things.
20:03 You know, now we've done Taffer Tries It,
20:05 which is a tasty,
20:07 which is what took us in TikTok to 1.7 million.
20:10 We were at zero.
20:11 And we launched that one program
20:13 and it took us to 1.7 million.
20:15 So, you know, I think it's understanding
20:17 who your audience is and being authentic,
20:20 but giving them something every time you go to social media.
20:24 I think that's really the trick to it.
20:27 And social media fills our egos.
20:29 It can't, it needs to fill their ego.
20:31 - You launched John Taffer No Excuses, the first podcast.
20:37 Now we have the second revitalization
20:40 called the John Taffer Podcast.
20:42 Bring me inside the Taffer world of podcasting.
20:46 - Sure, you know,
20:47 Podcast One approached me originally and said,
20:49 "John, we'd like you to do a podcast."
20:51 And I'm very good friends with Adam Carolla,
20:53 who you probably know
20:54 is one of the most successful podcasters in the world.
20:56 So, you know, it's very easy for me to call Adam,
20:58 get advice from Adam or his manager, Mike August,
21:01 you know, how does this work in podcast.
21:02 So working with them, they brought me to Podcast One
21:05 and I launched the John Taffer No Excuses podcast.
21:08 We did great.
21:09 Got up to over a hundred thousand downloads per podcast,
21:11 which is good numbers in the podcast business.
21:13 You know, we went fastest growing in the country,
21:16 but then I had to go do 40 episodes of Bar Rescue.
21:18 So doing it every week became a real, real problem for us.
21:23 And I don't like, you know, there's three things in life,
21:26 good, fast and cheap.
21:27 You get two out of three.
21:29 You want a good and fast, it's not cheap.
21:31 You want a good and cheap, it's not fast.
21:32 You want a good and cheap,
21:35 you want a fast and cheap, it's not good.
21:37 So I look at the podcast that way.
21:39 I couldn't do them every week while we shoot.
21:42 So we let it go for a little while.
21:44 Then by popular demand sponsors and stuff,
21:46 we were told, "Please come back and do it.
21:48 Please come back and do it."
21:49 My new contract for Bar Rescue
21:51 gives me a little more free time.
21:52 I'm producing more, I'm on camera a little less.
21:55 So we launched a new one just a few weeks ago,
21:57 maybe a few months ago, and it took off again.
22:00 We're doing very, very well with it.
22:02 But you know, I find a podcast,
22:04 I'm gonna keep throwing the same word at you, authentic.
22:06 - Yeah.
22:07 - So I'm trying to have guests on
22:09 that I have something to talk about
22:10 that, you know, provides some interesting.
22:11 We just had the founder of DraftKings on.
22:13 - It was an amazing episode.
22:14 - Yeah, and I was really puzzled by AI
22:17 and how that's affecting gaming.
22:19 And I really thought, "Boy, there must be a lot
22:20 of other people that are puzzled about that too."
22:22 So I did the podcast, not for me, for them.
22:25 But let me leave you with an interesting thought.
22:28 Not leave you, but let me give you an interesting thought.
22:30 I don't believe you're in a restaurant business.
22:32 I don't believe you're in a food and beverage business.
22:34 You're in a reaction business.
22:36 - Yes.
22:37 - Not the food and beverage business.
22:38 Your cook in the kitchen is not making an entree.
22:40 That is not the product.
22:41 He's producing a reaction.
22:43 That is the product.
22:44 The entree is strictly the vehicle to the reaction.
22:48 So if I go out with my wife tonight
22:49 and a plate of food hits the table,
22:51 one of two things happens.
22:52 Either we sit up, look at it and react to it, or we don't.
22:57 If we don't react to it, that restaurant is stuck
23:00 in mediocrity for the rest of its life.
23:03 You see, we don't sell food.
23:04 We sell reactions.
23:05 We achieve it through food.
23:07 We don't do plate presentations.
23:08 We do reactions.
23:09 We achieve it through plate presentations.
23:11 We don't serve people.
23:13 We create reactions while we serve people.
23:15 I don't make drinks.
23:16 I create reactions while we produce those drinks.
23:19 Make no mistake.
23:21 He or she who creates the greatest reactions
23:23 in our business wins.
23:26 That's the business that we're in.
23:28 So when you start to pick apart the science
23:31 of human reactions, which was my first book, "Raise the Bar,"
23:34 how do I create better reactions in guests?
23:36 'Cause if I can manage my guests' reactions,
23:39 I can manage my destiny.
23:41 If I can manage my employee reactions,
23:44 I can manage my destiny.
23:46 So I'm in the business of managing reactions.
23:49 I do it through products, through words,
23:51 through imagery, through music, through all those things.
23:53 We don't play music.
23:53 We play reactions.
23:55 We achieve it through music.
23:56 At Taffer's Tavern, every song is curated into key,
24:00 instrumentation type, beats per minute curves.
24:04 I can make you chew faster.
24:06 I can take five minutes off the table turn
24:08 through music design.
24:10 So I'm a nutcase about all these.
24:12 As a matter of fact, I own the only patent ever issued
24:14 by the federal government for managing music
24:16 to achieve a desired ambience in a hospitality property.
24:19 I'm a nutcase about reactions.
24:21 For example, and I know I'm on a rampage here,
24:24 but you'll like this.
24:25 - I like it.
24:26 - Pick a Denny's.
24:27 Lights are bright, waiter walks fast.
24:29 Go to a Morton's.
24:32 Lights are low, waiter walks slow.
24:35 If that waiter walked faster in Morton's,
24:37 that steak isn't worth $80 anymore, is it?
24:40 - True.
24:41 - If the lights were just a little brighter,
24:42 that steak isn't worth $80 anymore, is it?
24:45 Pace affects value perception, price perception,
24:50 imagery, concept energy, all of these things,
24:54 lighting levels, you know, the lower the lights,
24:56 the closer I have to come to talk to you.
24:59 The louder the music, the closer I have to come talk.
25:01 All of these things create reactions, lighting, music,
25:06 table height, table size,
25:08 all of these things create reactions.
25:10 So I pick everything apart and build reactions
25:15 into every single plate presentation, item,
25:18 everything that I do.
25:19 That's why I think I'm successful.
25:21 And I think when you experience our operations,
25:24 you'll feel it in your gut,
25:25 the difference in energy and reactions that happens.
25:28 - So you've had President Trump on your podcast.
25:34 You've had Dave Portnoy, El Prez, Barstool Sports.
25:37 You've had Chef Robert Irvine, who's a friend of our show.
25:40 He's absolutely incredible.
25:41 Dana White, Mark Cuban, Dan Rowe,
25:44 all of these incredible people on your show.
25:46 As I was doing research for this episode,
25:49 I was listening to you talking about repurposed content,
25:52 specifically to Dave Portnoy.
25:54 And I also found an article of a keynote
25:57 that you gave at VCon,
25:58 which you referenced at Gary V's VCon,
26:01 and you spoke about Disney.
26:03 You spoke about the experience,
26:05 the reaction that Disney gets.
26:06 I recently, literally two days ago,
26:09 took my four-year-old daughter to Disney.
26:11 And the entire experience, the long lines,
26:14 but it was the reaction.
26:15 It was how they put the characters into costume,
26:19 not uniform, costume.
26:22 They put them on stages where I put up my wallet.
26:26 - Not a station, a stage.
26:27 - Correct, stages.
26:29 My question to you is why or how can you repurpose content
26:34 to give the internet more of Jon Taffer?
26:40 Because the speech that you gave at VCon
26:44 should be as a part of your podcast,
26:46 can be a bonus episode.
26:47 You give all these incredible speeches,
26:49 you do all this incredible work,
26:50 you're already doing amazing things
26:53 that your audience can benefit from.
26:55 And more importantly, back to your grandson
26:57 and to the future generations of industry,
26:59 how can they learn?
27:00 Well, they can learn through this greatest gift
27:01 that we all have, which is the internet.
27:03 So what can I ask of you?
27:05 What can you do to help us get more Taffer on podcasts?
27:09 - You know, it's interesting when you put that forth
27:11 and you raise a really good point
27:13 and something I haven't really thought of.
27:15 You know, when I'm on stage at VCon, I do content.
27:18 I'm talking to people, I'm looking in their eyes.
27:20 So I feed off them.
27:21 I don't have a prepared script.
27:23 When I went out to VCon, there was no outline,
27:25 there was no script, I had no cards, I had no notes.
27:27 It was all a free flowing based on their facial expressions.
27:32 Podcasts, I look at very differently.
27:34 It's more conversational, a little more intimate,
27:37 but why couldn't I take that Gary V type of content
27:40 and bring it to my podcast?
27:43 I've never done that before.
27:44 I think that's a fantastic idea.
27:46 Listen to my next podcast.
27:48 I think it's a great idea.
27:49 But you know, just for fun,
27:50 I'd like to tell you what I said on Gary V about Disney.
27:53 - Please, I would love to hear it.
27:54 - And I looked out into the room and I'm a huge Disney fan.
27:57 I'm very close to Disney Imagineering.
27:58 These guys are all my buddies.
28:00 And you know, I said,
28:01 how many of you have been to Disney World?
28:03 And they raised their hands and I say,
28:04 how many of you were hugged by Mickey Mouse?
28:05 And they all raised their hands.
28:07 So if you saw who was in that costume, you'd die.
28:10 But you didn't see foam and fabric.
28:12 You saw Mickey.
28:14 Let's say you walk down main street
28:15 with the ugliest child on the planet.
28:18 This kid is a third eye in the middle of its head.
28:20 I mean, it's the ugliest child in the planet.
28:22 And you walk up to a VIP hostess and you say,
28:24 what time does the parade start?
28:26 That VIP hostess is gonna answer your question.
28:29 She's gonna bend down.
28:30 She's gonna lift up that kid's hat.
28:32 She's gonna look at the ugliest child
28:34 she's ever seen in her life.
28:37 And she's gonna look up at mom
28:38 and she's gonna say, she's adorable.
28:42 And mom's gonna stand up and glow.
28:44 You can almost see the light emitting from her.
28:47 There's only two places in the world
28:48 where that kid is adorable, Disney and grandma's house.
28:52 Go down to Universal Studios.
28:54 That kid ain't shit.
28:56 That's the Disney magic.
28:58 So when you look at the way they make you feel,
29:00 you stand on line an hour and a half for an attraction.
29:03 You run to the next one, stand on line for an hour and a half.
29:05 You buy a Coke, it's got Mickey Mouse on it.
29:07 14.95, you gotta carry this cup around with you all day now.
29:11 The dollars are huge.
29:13 It's 110 degrees, but you come home,
29:16 you love every minute of it
29:18 'cause they're the masters of reaction.
29:21 Think about this.
29:23 They can make you happy while you're standing on line
29:25 for an hour and 20 minutes in 100 degree temperature,
29:29 but the restaurant down the street
29:31 can't make you happy in 45 minutes with food.
29:33 - Yes.
29:37 - That's the power of reactions.
29:39 They're the masters of it.
29:40 So years ago, I got to work with Disney
29:42 as a consultant in Imagineering,
29:44 and I learned those philosophies and those principles.
29:47 You know, I made them my own, of course,
29:49 and my own phrasing, but, you know,
29:50 Disney doesn't have employees.
29:52 They're cast members.
29:52 They don't wear uniforms.
29:53 They wear costumes.
29:54 They don't work in a station.
29:55 They work on stage.
29:56 And those are powerful things.
29:58 I try to communicate that to my employees as well.
30:01 By the way, we don't use the word uniform.
30:02 We do use the word customs in our companies.
30:05 - I love it.
30:06 So recently I was very fortunate.
30:08 Dan Rowe, the CEO of Fransmart,
30:10 flew his plane from Arizona out to San Diego.
30:15 I picked him up, took him to our barbecue restaurant,
30:17 and we actually shared a conversation
30:20 about Taffer's Tavern,
30:21 about what you're building, how you're building it,
30:24 and why it's revolutionizing the game.
30:26 Can you bring the audience in
30:29 and give them a seat at the table of what you've been up to?
30:33 - Sure.
30:33 You know, in our industry, we have a problem
30:35 that we think of as a new problem.
30:37 It's not a new problem.
30:38 For the past 25 years,
30:40 the National Restaurant Association
30:41 has focused on the labor problems in the restaurant industry,
30:45 the staffing issues in the restaurant industry.
30:47 You know, four years ago, five years ago,
30:50 back in the Trump presidency,
30:52 unemployment was very low, like it is now.
30:54 We couldn't find a workforce.
30:56 We were struggling to succeed.
30:58 And I'm traveling around the country.
30:59 I have clients like Fridays, National Change,
31:02 franchisors, franchisees, and doing my consulting work.
31:05 And I realized this is unsustainable.
31:08 The days of six guys in a kitchen, it's not sustainable.
31:11 First of all, I can't get the six guys.
31:12 If I can, I lose two of them every freaking week.
31:15 I'm training and training and training.
31:17 My manager is in the back of the house training all day long.
31:19 They're ignoring the customers in the front of the house.
31:22 The residual impact of this is massive.
31:25 What if, what if I could say,
31:28 I'm going to redesign a kitchen from scratch.
31:31 I'm going to create a restaurant that uses 60% less labor.
31:35 I'm going to leverage on robotics and computers
31:38 and automated cooking to fill that void.
31:41 So what if I could make seven days of training,
31:44 seven hours of training?
31:46 What if I could reduce the amount of people in a kitchen
31:48 from six to two?
31:50 What if I could do that?
31:52 Is it even possible?
31:54 So then I went to test kitchens for three years
31:57 and I went to Cisco test kitchens
31:59 and Cuisine Solutions test kitchens.
32:01 And I landed on sous vide.
32:03 And sous vide is a Michelin five-star cooking technique
32:05 where food is cooked in plastic bags in water ovens.
32:08 So for example, I can take a beautiful New York strip
32:11 from a particular farm, a particular strain of meat.
32:13 I can season it, put it in my sous vide bag,
32:15 drop it in a water oven at 135 degrees.
32:19 That's going to cook to a perfect medium rare
32:22 at 135 degrees.
32:24 If I leave it in that water oven for three hours,
32:27 it's still going to be 135 degrees.
32:29 It is never going to cook past medium rare.
32:33 It comes out of the water oven,
32:34 but it looks like the center of a prime rib.
32:36 It's all pink.
32:38 So that steak then comes out of the water oven,
32:40 goes into a turbo chef type of an oven
32:44 that uses a convection, microwave, and steam, and light
32:52 to sear the outside of the steak,
32:54 bring the center to the right temperature.
32:56 My ticket time for that steak is under six minutes,
33:00 and it's the most delicious steak
33:01 you've ever had in your life.
33:03 So the cook isn't slicing that steak.
33:07 He's not putting it in a bag.
33:08 He's not doing any of those things.
33:10 In theory, not in theory, in practical use,
33:13 there is no raw protein in that restaurant at all
33:16 that isn't under wrap when it's cooked.
33:18 - Wow.
33:19 - So there's no raw protein on any countertops.
33:21 Any cooktops or anything.
33:23 So the entire restaurant is sous vide.
33:26 There is no traditional raw proteins in a restaurant.
33:29 Everything is sous vide.
33:30 My longest ticket time is-
33:31 - Hoodless.
33:32 Hoodless, right?
33:34 Hoodless restaurants?
33:35 - All hoodless.
33:36 - Amazing.
33:37 - So the product coming in is specked so tightly
33:40 that it has great consistency.
33:42 It's cooked in a computerized fashion
33:44 that is absolutely consistent.
33:47 There's no human error in the process.
33:49 My cooks don't even salt anything.
33:52 - Wow.
33:52 - There is no human error in the process at all.
33:55 So on a Saturday night, I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago
33:58 at our Boston location.
33:59 Saturday night, restaurant was packed, 200 seats,
34:01 two guys in the kitchen telling each other jokes
34:04 as they're working.
34:05 I can air condition my kitchens.
34:07 - Wow.
34:09 Air conditioned kitchens?
34:10 There you go.
34:11 - So think about it.
34:12 Less people, less turnover, less training,
34:15 less burden on management.
34:17 And I believe this is the kitchen of the future.
34:19 So we invented it.
34:21 There's no traditional range in a Taffer's Tavern.
34:24 There's no traditional oven in a Taffer's Tavern.
34:27 Everything is new generation, unhooded, and electric.
34:30 - Tell me about brand partnerships.
34:33 How do you integrate brand partnerships?
34:35 And I know you have a special one with Shift 4.
34:37 Tell us about what you have special for the audience
34:40 and then give us the bigger theory on brand deals.
34:45 - Yeah, you know, for me, brand deals,
34:46 first of all, it has to be something I believe in.
34:48 I turn down brand deals all the time
34:50 for things that I don't believe in.
34:52 Shift 4 is an amazing company.
34:53 Jared Isaacman, the CEO of Shift 4,
34:55 is a dear, dear, dear friend of mine.
34:58 So we've hung out together, spend a lot of time together.
35:01 Shift 4 is on a mission to change our industry.
35:04 With the SkyTab systems,
35:05 the software approaches that they're taking,
35:07 their technological view of the industry
35:09 is so futuristic, so forward-looking.
35:13 But they need somebody from the industry
35:16 who's in there to help guide the programmers at times
35:19 and give them ideas and give them challenges,
35:22 the kind of things that you and I sleep with every night
35:24 that they don't think of.
35:25 So that's my role with Shift 4 is I originally,
35:29 when we started, I had my Bar HQ app,
35:32 which was a management app for bars.
35:34 When the deal with Shift 4 started,
35:36 they bought my Bar HQ app.
35:37 So all that management tools and programming
35:40 could roll into their products.
35:42 Then we evolved it.
35:44 Jared and I, having a burger
35:49 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas one afternoon,
35:51 created the term Smart POS,
35:55 and we took it to the next level.
35:56 A POS system that flags it when your revenues drop 2%
36:00 Monday to Monday, and gives you the tools to fix it.
36:04 The promotion, the merchandising, the sales plan to fix it.
36:07 A POS system that truly acts like a partner in revenues,
36:12 as well as transactional management.
36:13 That was our vision.
36:14 So that's really, really exciting for me.
36:17 I also have a sponsorship with ChargeFuse.
36:19 And the reason why is, I look at length of stay in bars,
36:24 and I look at what I call battery anxiety.
36:27 You know how many people I've lost money to
36:29 because their batteries are going dead in their bars?
36:31 So this is a problem for our industry.
36:33 We don't all have USB.
36:35 So ChargeFuse to me is about length of stay.
36:38 Terrific, it helps.
36:39 So I formed a relationship with them as well
36:42 because I believe in these things.
36:43 And I think lending my name and my expertise to them
36:46 can make a difference.
36:48 - That's very powerful.
36:49 So every single Wednesday and Friday
36:51 on the Social Audio App Clubhouse,
36:53 you, the listeners, you guys can come up on stage,
36:56 tell me about your restaurant, tell me about sales,
36:58 tell me about marketing.
36:59 We have content creators,
37:00 digital hospitality professionals from all over the globe.
37:02 That's Wednesday, Friday, 10 a.m. Pacific time,
37:05 1 p.m. Eastern time.
37:07 Please join us on that.
37:09 John, every single week I give a social shout out.
37:11 This week's shout out is going to my business partner
37:14 and my general manager, Eric Olofsson.
37:17 So he knows how much, we do six shows.
37:19 We do six podcasts every single week.
37:21 We're a barbecue media company.
37:22 He runs the barbecue side of the business.
37:24 I'm driving the media side.
37:25 He doesn't listen to the shows, but he says specifically,
37:29 "If you have John Taffer on the show, I will listen."
37:31 So Eric, this is for you.
37:32 We love you, man.
37:33 We appreciate you.
37:34 But John, give me a social shout out.
37:36 Give me a shout out to somebody on your team,
37:38 somebody that works behind the scenes
37:40 to help John live his best life.
37:43 - I got to tell you, you spoke to him.
37:44 Sean Walker is the president of my company.
37:47 You know, Sean joined my company about five years ago.
37:49 It's not easy.
37:50 I have a very unique company, guys.
37:51 You know, we have our bourbon business.
37:54 We have our restaurant business.
37:55 We have our television business,
37:57 our consulting businesses, our partnerships, our sponsors.
38:00 It's a very unique business.
38:01 So finding a team around me has been a real challenge
38:04 that had to come.
38:05 Sean stepped in five years ago.
38:06 It has been just an incredible addition to our company.
38:09 He became president of the company about two months ago,
38:12 and he's just been a fantastic leader.
38:15 And I'm home today in my home bar.
38:17 You know why I'm home?
38:18 'Cause Sean is in the office.
38:20 - That's awesome.
38:21 - No, you know, June 25th,
38:22 I'll be on my boat for six weeks.
38:24 - Good for you.
38:25 Where are you going? - Going to the Keys,
38:26 in the Florida Keys and all that.
38:27 And I can do that today because I have a great team.
38:30 I could not have done that a couple of years ago.
38:33 - That's amazing.
38:33 So anybody that's listening,
38:35 if you guys want to reach out to me,
38:36 it's @SeanPWalchef, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
38:41 I want to hear about your restaurant.
38:42 I want to hear about your bar, your nightclub.
38:45 We appreciate you listening to the show.
38:46 And John Taffer is very easy to find.
38:49 Sean and his team,
38:50 Sean and the team are doing an incredible job.
38:53 We will put links in the show notes
38:55 so that you can check out Taffer's Tavern.
38:57 The new brown butter bourbon,
38:59 we'll put links there for that as well.
39:02 Also for the Shift 4 promotion.
39:04 John, it's been truly an honor.
39:05 - Can I tell you a quick story?
39:06 - Please, leave us with a quick story.
39:08 - So 240 episodes of Bar Rescue.
39:11 I got to come up with five drinks every episode.
39:13 Not easy, man.
39:14 How many old fashions can I do, right?
39:16 (laughing)
39:17 So I'm in my restaurant in Atlanta
39:19 and I'm playing with my sous vide.
39:20 - Yeah.
39:21 - And somebody was cooking with brown butter.
39:24 So I took a bunch of whiskey and I poured it
39:26 in a sous vide bag and I poured the brown butter on top,
39:28 sealed it and put it in a water oven at about 150 degrees.
39:31 Left it in there for three or four hours, took it out,
39:35 put it in a walk-in.
39:36 When it coagulated, I skimmed the butter off the top.
39:39 Sean, I poured it through a coffee filter
39:41 when I was done. - Oh.
39:43 - It was cloudy, but it was delicious.
39:46 So we turned it into the campfire cocktail.
39:48 We sold over a thousand a month of them.
39:51 - Wow.
39:52 - And that's how this was created.
39:53 It was never, I'm gonna go into bourbon business.
39:55 It started with an idea that we tried in a restaurant
39:59 that was so powerful that we chose to bring it
40:01 to the street.
40:02 - That's amazing.
40:03 - It was the most exciting opportunities of all.
40:05 And if there's any lesson I've learned in this process,
40:09 listen to your customers.
40:10 When their wallet opens, their wallet talks.
40:13 - That's amazing.
40:15 Well, John, if you ever make it to San Diego
40:17 or anyone from the Taffer team,
40:18 please come by for some barbecue.
40:21 Hopefully I'll have some bourbon,
40:22 some of your bourbon at the bar waiting for you
40:25 to have a campfire,
40:26 but that goes for anyone that's listening.
40:28 This is a rising tide lifts all ships.
40:31 And we're grateful that you guys listened to the show.
40:34 John, thank you for what you do for the industry.
40:36 I can't wait to see you in person.
40:38 And more importantly, I can't wait for that podcast
40:40 to have more repurposed John Taffer content.
40:43 So be sure to subscribe to the show,
40:45 follow them on YouTube because John and the team
40:48 are gonna just start pumping it out.
40:50 So very excited for you.
40:51 - Thank you, Sean.
40:52 This was fun, buddy.
40:53 Let's do it again another time.
40:54 - You got it.
40:55 Look forward to it.
40:56 - Take care, buddy.
40:57 - Thank you for listening to Restaurant Influencers,
40:59 the best way that you can help us with the show
41:02 is to subscribe and write a review.
41:04 We love the opportunity to connect with you
41:07 no matter where you are on the globe,
41:09 no matter what restaurant you are running.
41:11 Please send us a DM on social @SeanPWalcheff.
41:16 If you are interested in toast,
41:17 if you wanna improve your digital hospitality,
41:20 please send me a DM.
41:21 I will get you in touch with a local toast representative.
41:25 We appreciate you listening to the show.
41:27 The best way that you can help the show
41:29 is share it with a friend,
41:30 and we will catch you all next week,
41:32 or we will see you on one of the digital playgrounds
41:35 that we call social media.
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