Victor Lugger, co-founder of the restaurant group Big Mamma and the tech platform sunday, is no stranger to building memorable experiences that transcend mere dining. For Lugger, restaurants should be spaces filled with joy and emotion, encouraging guests to savor each moment.
When creating Big Mamma, his goal was to evoke the vibrant energy of an Italian street, capturing the warmth, energy, and spontaneity of Italy. As he put it, Big Mamma was born as “an antidepressant for the Sunday blues,” where the ambiance, staff, and even fellow patrons combine to create a place of high energy, reminiscent of the joy you might find walking the streets of Venice or Rome.
Watch now to learn about building the Big Mamma Group, lessons learned through disaster and creating the sunday app for restaurants.
When creating Big Mamma, his goal was to evoke the vibrant energy of an Italian street, capturing the warmth, energy, and spontaneity of Italy. As he put it, Big Mamma was born as “an antidepressant for the Sunday blues,” where the ambiance, staff, and even fellow patrons combine to create a place of high energy, reminiscent of the joy you might find walking the streets of Venice or Rome.
Watch now to learn about building the Big Mamma Group, lessons learned through disaster and creating the sunday app for restaurants.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur.
00:08I am your host, Sean Walsh.
00:09Chef, this is a Cali BBQ Media production in life, in the restaurant
00:15business, and in the new creator economy, we learn through lessons
00:19and stories. We started this show back in 2022, thankful to Toast,
00:24our primary technology partner for not only providing technology
00:28for our BBQ restaurants, but for believing in storytelling, for
00:31believing and giving us a platform to partner with Entrepreneur to
00:35share the greatest stories of hospitality professionals and
00:38storytellers all over the globe.
00:41Today, we have Victor Luger, who is the co-founder of Big Mama
00:46Group. He is also the co-founder of Sunday, the payment app, and
00:50he is a master storyteller.
00:52He has been doing some incredible things.
00:55We are recording it as almost his 40th birthday, and I am just so
00:59honored, and I can't wait for you, the listener, you, the viewer,
01:03to hear the incredible stories of not only what Victor and his team
01:07have done, but what they are doing for our industry.
01:10Victor, welcome to the show.
01:11Thanks very much for having me, Sean.
01:13So our favorite random question is, where in the world is your
01:18favorite stadium, stage, or venue?
01:22Oh, I think it's in Strasbourg, which is my hometown.
01:29I was born in Strasbourg on the border with Germany, and when you
01:33asked me this question, I think about a concert I went to when I was
01:36pretty 14.
01:37It was a rap concert, and we were in a very small venue called
01:41La Lettrie, and I was probably a meter and a half from stage.
01:45It was super high energy, and the rapper we went to see at that time
01:48was probably one of my first concerts ever.
01:51Turned out to be a very big guy, super famous, et cetera, and the
01:55point of this answer, I think, is that when you ask this question,
02:00it's about an emotion I had, and it reminds, I think, us.
02:04I think this is why you asked the question about what we remember
02:08are emotions, and you mentioned your telling story.
02:12We restaurateurs are telling stories.
02:14I'm a huge believer of the fact that in a restaurant, we create emotions.
02:20We're not there to feed people.
02:21We're there to give them an emotion, whatever that emotion is,
02:25and this is what people eventually will remember.
02:28So if we go to Strasbourg, how big is the venue?
02:31How many people?
02:32200 people, maybe.
02:34Beautiful.
02:35We're going to go to Strasbourg.
02:36We're going to talk to Toast.
02:37We'll talk to Entrepreneur.
02:38We'll talk to Sunday.
02:39We're going to bring people that play.
02:41We like to say they play the game within the game.
02:43If you're listening to this podcast, if you're watching this podcast,
02:46you care about improving not only your hospitality business,
02:49but your storytelling.
02:51So we're going to invite these VIPs there for a TEDx-style presentation,
02:55and I'm going to give you the mic, and I'm going to prompt you and say,
02:59Victor, you said that building restaurants are an antithesis to the Sunday blues.
03:10That's why you started Big Mama.
03:13The name Big Mama.
03:14You also created a tech company called Sunday.
03:19Bring me to Sunday the day, and how much does it mean to Big Mama?
03:24How much does it mean to Sunday?
03:26And how much does it mean to you personally?
03:30It's actually really fun because you're the first person
03:33to ever connect these dots.
03:35Yes, when we launched Big Mama, my co-founder, Tigran,
03:38said we are an anti-Sunday blues, an antidepressant for the Sunday blues,
03:43which is we want to build places where the vibe, the people, the staff,
03:47actually, all the guests, the lighting, the music is going to give you joy.
03:53That's the emotion, this sort of high-energy Italian joy
03:58that you're going to feel when you walk the streets of Venice or Rome or in Sicily.
04:02And how can we recreate that sort of emotion?
04:06We, European-American tourists, get, when we get to Italy,
04:10this sort of high-energy vibe that Italians have so well.
04:16How can we recreate that in our restaurants?
04:18And that was the start point of Big Mama.
04:20So the start point of Big Mama was maybe anti-Sunday evening.
04:24And the start point of Sunday, it's called Sunday
04:26because Sunday practically saves you the 10 to 15 minutes hassle
04:31you have every time you go in a restaurant and you have to pay.
04:34And that 10 to 15 minutes, it's one of the great things Sunday does.
04:38And it was about giving this time back to people,
04:41which is when you see a Sunday QR code on the table,
04:44during your whole meal, you know that at the end of your meal,
04:48it's going to take you five seconds to pay.
04:49You don't have to worry about,
04:51oh, sorry, let me pause here for the podcast.
04:53Let me pause here because I need to check the bill
04:55because in 10 minutes, I need to go.
04:57And then I can find my waiter, et cetera.
04:59In the next five to 10 minutes,
05:01our conversation is actually hindered by the fact that
05:05we are actually thinking about getting the bill
05:07and getting out of the restaurant.
05:09And so getting this time back,
05:11well, we can do whatever we want.
05:12Either we can go earlier if we want to go earlier,
05:14or we can have the next 10 minutes
05:16and keep having a meaningful conversation.
05:18And the moment where you have your time back
05:20to do whatever you want is Sunday.
05:22That's the idea.
05:24So you built Big Mamas.
05:27Can you give us a size and scope of current Big Mamas?
05:30How many countries?
05:31How many employees?
05:32How many restaurants?
05:33We started, our first restaurant opened
05:36pretty much 10 years ago.
05:37It took us two and a half years
05:39from the start point of let's be full-time restauranteur
05:43to opening our first restaurant.
05:44It's a very long time.
05:46I remember my wife telling me after a year,
05:48like, this has been a year already
05:50with Detroit at home.
05:51Like, when are you going to actually open a restaurant?
05:53And it took me another year and a half.
05:55It took us two years and a half,
05:56but then we opened one that was 10 years ago.
05:59Now we have 28 restaurants in seven countries across Europe.
06:04We started in France.
06:05The UK is now our biggest business,
06:08but also in Spain, in Germany, et cetera.
06:10We're in Italy, which is a great source of excitement
06:14and joy that we're cooking Italian food.
06:16Big Mama is Italian restaurants.
06:18They're all different.
06:20So different design, different names, et cetera,
06:22but they have the same vibe.
06:24I think if you're in a Big Mama restaurant,
06:26you know it's a restaurant by us, except it's unique.
06:29And so we sort of have,
06:31I think we're having both of the best roles.
06:33We have a brand effect, but they're all different.
06:38So 28 restaurants,
06:39we have pretty much 2,500 people in the company.
06:43That is by far the biggest source of joy
06:47and the biggest source of being happy
06:49to go to work every morning.
06:51When we started, my very vain wish
06:56was to have the coolest restaurant in town.
06:58It took me a few years to realize how vain that was.
07:01But from the get-go, my co-founder, Tigran's dream
07:05was to build an incredible corporate culture
07:08and a great team.
07:09And I was like, a great corporate culture?
07:11What kind of dream is that?
07:13And it took me a few years to realize that,
07:16yeah, this is actually the dream.
07:18And when you have 28 restaurants,
07:19well, maybe making 29 is exciting,
07:22but to be honest, not that much.
07:24What's actually exciting is that restaurant 29
07:26is actually gonna be run by a guy or a girl
07:30who's 25 years old,
07:31who joined Big Mama's team three years ago.
07:34He or she came from Italy,
07:36could not speak any other language but Italian,
07:38and three years into it,
07:40that person is running an 80 or 100 people business,
07:44owning that business in a foreign country,
07:46living the dream, growing their life,
07:49just like I'm growing mine.
07:50And the fact that Big Mama is this sort of machine,
07:54we all feed into it,
07:56and this machine grows and feeds us and grows our life,
08:00that's why we keep pushing it.
08:03So we learn through lessons from stories.
08:07I read a story about your first pop-up
08:10in the South of France with 150 people,
08:14the monsoon pop-up.
08:16Would you mind sharing that story for our audience?
08:19And what the lesson was that you learned?
08:22That was a big one.
08:24So a year into willing to be a restauranteur,
08:28which took us, as I said, two and a half years,
08:29a year into it, we opened this pop-up
08:31in the South of France.
08:33And it's 100 seats inside, 150 seats out.
08:37I'm not even, it's 60 seats inside,
08:39but 150 seats on the terrace.
08:42The first day we opened, we were full,
08:44which is absolutely unique.
08:46And I mean, we drowned 20 times.
08:50That's how we learned the hard way to be a restauranteur.
08:52A few weeks into it, so I'm still,
08:54I've been a restauranteur only a few weeks.
08:56We have 150 people sitting on the terrace,
08:59having great fun.
09:00It's 9 p.m. in the South of France in a beautiful village.
09:02Close your eyes, you're there with us.
09:04We're having pizza, pasta, wine, et cetera.
09:06Super atmosphere, small little lanterns hanging
09:10and beautiful lighting.
09:11Everyone's there, happy on holiday.
09:14And in the span of 10 minutes comes a massive storm.
09:19The wind is so strong
09:21that we have to bring back the awnings.
09:23And literally five minutes later,
09:25it's pouring rain, literally.
09:28And I remember being there.
09:31And I remember it because it never happens to me.
09:34I'm sort of really good in adversity and calm.
09:37And for the first time, I think in my life,
09:39I can remember I was sort of paralyzed by,
09:42oh my God, what are we gonna do?
09:46Like we have 150 people, we can't bring them in.
09:49There was not enough space.
09:50And we have water pouring into plates.
09:53And I remember the team who was a team
09:57of young 20 years old Italians
09:59who could hardly speak French at the time.
10:02And they were not panicked at all.
10:04And they started to sing and clap their hands
10:07and take everyone under the arm and say,
10:09take your plates and bring everyone in.
10:12And we ended up having 150 people eating inside,
10:15half of them standing with their plates.
10:19But the fact that at no point did my team show
10:23we had any fear or it was a problem,
10:25but we made it a moment of joy.
10:28I think everyone remembers that night
10:29and everyone was very, very, very happy about it.
10:32From that moment, well, I've learned a lot of lessons.
10:36But number one is I was very humbled
10:40by how better than me my team was.
10:42And how as a leader, you're constantly learning
10:45from your team, feeding from their energy.
10:48That was a very humbling moment where,
10:50I mean, it was one of the thousand moments
10:52that in my life as a restauranteur,
10:54I realized that maybe I'm the co-CEO of the company,
10:58but my job is not more important than the dishwasher.
11:02And actually we always said,
11:03big moment, the dishwasher leaves their job.
11:06In three minutes, guests are gonna be impacted
11:09and start feeling it.
11:10If I go on holiday for two months,
11:12no one's gonna feel a difference.
11:13And so we're all just different parts
11:16of the same big machine.
11:17And that's, it's one of the beautiful humbling lessons
11:20of being a restauranteur.
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12:02You shared a story about a mentor
12:06that spoke to you when you were,
12:08I believe, commuting to London
12:10or might be living in London.
12:13And he basically said,
12:14Victor, you're the problem.
12:16You're the reason why you're not growing.
12:18Can you share a little bit about that?
12:20It really resonated with me as a restauranteur.
12:23We wear a badge of honor of being the owner operator,
12:27that I'm the one that's able to make these decisions
12:29and this thing is successful because of me.
12:32Can you share a little bit of insight
12:33of what that mentor taught you?
12:36Yeah, there was two things in this story.
12:39When I moved to London
12:40because we wanted to open a restaurant there,
12:43I sort of left the business in France and moved to London.
12:46And so we had 600 people team in France running restaurants
12:50and my co-founder started to manage this all by himself,
12:53which means that actually a lot of people in the team
12:57stood up and grew and filled in my shoes.
13:01That we realized only later
13:03was a great factor of success in Big Mama's development
13:06because we founder always went for the next thing
13:10and left the business to the team.
13:14The team had to fit in our shoes.
13:16And 10 years later,
13:18the 2,000, whatever, 500 people working in this company,
13:21they don't work for Tigran and I, co-founders.
13:23They work for the managers,
13:25the guy who have actually been running the show for now
13:28six, seven years.
13:29And that has actually allowed us to grow.
13:32But that was lesson number one.
13:33Then when I arrived in London,
13:35I realized that I could not keep managing,
13:37be a manager the way I was because in Paris,
13:40I would cycle from one restaurant to another
13:42within five minutes.
13:43So I could be in each and every of my restaurants
13:45every day of the year.
13:47In London, I had to be way more structured.
13:49It was different.
13:50I couldn't just cycle to my restaurants.
13:51I was in London, they were in Paris.
13:53And that brought me really close to burnout,
13:56trying to keep doing the things the same way
13:59when I was actually 1,000 kilometers away.
14:03That mentor, Kevin, a 60-year-old guy
14:06who definitely does not pat people in the back.
14:08And when I told him my story, he was like,
14:09yeah, yeah, you're doing it all wrong.
14:12I was like, what?
14:12I thought you would pat me in the back
14:14and tell me it's gonna be okay.
14:15He's like, it's not gonna be okay.
14:16You're fucking it up, man.
14:19Discipline's gonna set you free.
14:20And so he gave me his discipline routine.
14:24You can listen to thousands of podcasts
14:26and listen to books.
14:27A lot of people talk about this.
14:30And the best lesson, I think, was not that
14:32this routine is better than this other,
14:34but having a routine, having one discipline,
14:37and having one common management language
14:40throughout your company, whatever that language is,
14:43be it French, Italian, English.
14:45My point is, take whatever management book
14:47you can find on any shelf, just take one
14:50and implement it ruthlessly throughout your corporation.
14:53Because the whole point is not that this language
14:55is better than the other,
14:57that this book would be better than this other.
15:01It's about everyone in the company
15:02following the same routine, the same discipline,
15:05the same management logic, having a common language.
15:08And that, I think, is a CEO responsibility.
15:12And Kevin helped me a lot through that.
15:15And the last part of this story is,
15:18for a very long time, we thought only Tigran and I
15:20could run Big Mama.
15:23I think a lot of founders probably have this,
15:24at least French founders, because we're so full of ourselves.
15:28Americans are the same.
15:31And as we grew, we realized that,
15:33actually, my team in Germany,
15:36we don't have much more control on that team
15:38than if there were franchisees.
15:41They're actually autonomous.
15:42And that autonomy make them be proud and motivated
15:46by the success and failures of their restaurants.
15:49And it's actually the recipe of success of these restaurants
15:52is that because these people, they own,
15:55they are like owners of their restaurants.
15:57And that, as we've scaled the company,
16:01and as we want to keep scaling it,
16:03is something we think a lot about.
16:04How do we maintain this feeling of,
16:07in each and every of our 28 restaurants,
16:10the people who are there welcoming guests
16:13are not executing a playbook.
16:16They're thinking, how can I make the next guy
16:19who passes that door really happy for the next 90 minutes?
16:23And that is through feeling of ownership
16:26and feeling of initiative.
16:28I think you guys in America are very good at it.
16:30And this is something we try to be better at every day.
16:35I have this deep belief in 2017
16:39when we started our first podcast
16:42that I wasn't alone as a restaurateur,
16:45that there were other restaurateurs all over the globe
16:49in villages and cities and communities
16:52that experienced the same types of business problems,
16:56branding problems, storytelling problems,
16:59profitability problems.
17:01And if I started telling our story
17:04and talking to people that were smarter than I was,
17:07had more answers, had more wisdom, had more failures,
17:10that I eventually would get to the point
17:12where I would be having a conversation
17:15with someone like you from the other side of the world
17:18that has built incredible restaurants,
17:20that is building technology
17:22that is now rolling out into the United States,
17:25that is doing so well,
17:26that the technology that you're building
17:28not only was for Big Mama,
17:30but for all of the restaurateurs
17:31that you have talked to along the way
17:34that experienced those same problems.
17:37And knowing that we're in the beginning stages
17:41of what we can do globally as an industry,
17:44understanding that these restaurateurs,
17:47we all choose this crazy life.
17:51Every time a restaurateur, the ones that make it,
17:54we are the ones that everyone laughs at,
17:56all of our friends, all the people around us.
17:58Why would you get into this crazy business?
18:01You get into this crazy business
18:02to see a smile like you're smiling right now.
18:06Yeah, I mean, what you're saying
18:08reminds me of so many memories.
18:11I'm often saying to restaurateur friends across the world,
18:15let's have immense gratitude
18:18because we can find 10,000 reasons a day
18:20why this is a hard job.
18:22But the truth is, most people I know,
18:24if not all of them, we keep doing it.
18:27Let's not forget.
18:28I mean, I try to not forget
18:29how much gratitude I have for this.
18:31It's such an incredible job.
18:36I try never to forget that every lunch and dinner,
18:40there are people, they come to our places.
18:42And whenever I go to my restaurants,
18:43which is quite a lot,
18:45you see these smiles on their faces.
18:47And we're helping these smiles a little.
18:49We're participating in this.
18:51People go to the restaurants for their great moments.
18:54And we're the lucky ones to create that.
18:59And I used to work in the record industry.
19:03And I was a CFO, which was a fucking drill.
19:06Sorry, I'm not sure how much I can swear on that part.
19:08It's just a real drill.
19:09It's for, we're entrepreneurs.
19:12We can swear.
19:13We've earned the right to swear.
19:14It was a drill.
19:16But one day after six months in that job, I was 22,
19:20and I went to the first concert that we produced.
19:23And as a CFO, I had done a lot to produce that concert.
19:26And I was with the crowd looking at the concert.
19:29It was not even music I liked, to be honest.
19:32But I could sense the joy within people.
19:36They were so joyful.
19:38I was like, I'm a little part of this.
19:41That would fill me with energy for months.
19:44And as a restaurateur,
19:46we have this every lunch and dinner.
19:47The second thing you say is,
19:49there is no competition in this industry.
19:51It's incredible how kind people are,
19:55how generous they are with their time, with their advice.
19:58So many people have helped us.
20:00We're now in seven countries.
20:02Every time we've gone from a country to another,
20:05every time we've opened a new city,
20:07everyone has always been offering help, advice, open books.
20:13Now with Sunday, we have 3,000 restaurant clients
20:20across the globe, a lot of them in America.
20:22And because we met them through that,
20:25we've made friends and they've shared their stories.
20:27And because they have shared their incredible stories
20:30of being a restaurateur in America,
20:32we now on the Big Mama front,
20:34actually got excited about opening in America,
20:37which is in the making.
20:39We would have never done that
20:40if it had not been for the restaurateurs we met here
20:43and they share their stories and they told us,
20:46well, how hard it was, but also how gratifying it was.
20:50And yes, they say it's hard.
20:52Yes, everyone is having a hard time this year.
20:55Yeah, but people keep opening new places.
20:58People keep bringing, creating new dreams,
21:02new places for guests to be happy and it keeps growing.
21:06So, I mean, I'm just so grateful.
21:09Can you bring me to the pain point,
21:12the pain that Sunday solves?
21:18Yes.
21:19Just think back 15 years ago, you would need a cab
21:23and it's 1 a.m. in the morning, you're out of a venue.
21:26Actually, everyone's actually out of the same concert venue
21:29at the same time and it's pouring rain and it's January
21:32and you need a cab, right?
21:34And you're gonna wait in the street hailing a cab.
21:36Everyone can still remember that kind of memories
21:38because from time to time, it still happens.
21:41Yeah.
21:42And no one thought it was a problem.
21:44No one actually thought it was a problem
21:45until the Uber guys came and said, you know what?
21:48This could be done in three minutes on your phone
21:50and you can stay inside until your cab's there.
21:53And when COVID hit, we thought the moment of payment
21:56in a restaurant is just exactly as horrible.
22:00And payment has always been treated like a commodity,
22:02which is every restaurateur would ask,
22:04just get me the cheapest payment method possible.
22:07Yeah.
22:08When actually there is so much more to do during payment,
22:10it is first being hospitable to your guests.
22:13Let them just make it simpler and better for them.
22:17But then there's so much you can,
22:18you as a restaurateur can do better,
22:19which is retain your staff,
22:20increase tips in the U.S. by 15%.
22:24Turn your tables faster.
22:26When you're a busy venue or a brunch venue
22:28and you're all, you're making 60% of your revenue
22:31on three nights on Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
22:34If your table turns 15% faster,
22:36how much more money can you make?
22:38And how much more tips are you going to give
22:40to your staff to retain them?
22:42And you're going to get ratings.
22:44Everyone who's going to pay
22:45are just going to rate their experience.
22:46So you're going to get very deep data on how you perform.
22:50If you have more than one venue
22:52and you're not in your restaurants every day,
22:54this is invaluable.
22:55I get 2000 ratings, waiter by waiter,
22:58dish by dish every week in every of my restaurants.
23:02That's unique.
23:03So Sunday's about showing
23:05that the checkout moment in a restaurant,
23:07not just payment, but checkout,
23:09is actually much more than just getting it two bips cheaper.
23:13By the way, we actually get it almost a percent cheaper.
23:16But that's not even the reason why you should do it.
23:18I think the reason why you should do it
23:20is very similar to when 20 years ago,
23:24actually 24 years ago,
23:25OpenTable came with this online reservation stuff.
23:29And you could hear a lot of people saying,
23:31oh no, reservation online, no way.
23:34We're about people.
23:35So we're going to keep phones
23:37and a real human voice behind the phone, right?
23:40If you want to make a reservation at us,
23:41because maybe we're Michelin star
23:43or we're into very refined hospitality.
23:46Only to realize in the next years
23:49that it was actually being not hospitable
23:52to force someone to make a call within opening hours
23:56and to queue over the line.
23:57And then to take three minutes to explain,
23:59my name is L-U-G-G-E-R.
24:02You see my point?
24:02It's actually, if someone would ask you today
24:04to make a call to do a restaurant preservation,
24:07you would be thinking they're nuts.
24:09I think in a very near future,
24:13anywhere in a city in America and in Europe,
24:15everyone will be thinking you're forcing me
24:17to actually hail a waiter
24:19and get a plastic card in my hand
24:22and then wait for you to process it,
24:24then sign, then write, then calculate what is 20% tips,
24:28when it's 22.
24:29It's nuts when you think of it.
24:32And we're only three years into that journey,
24:34but the feeling that we're making it simpler
24:38for now billions of people,
24:40it's more than a billion people
24:41who paid with our solutions in the last three years.
24:45It's exciting.
24:47The scale of it is bigger than restaurants.
24:50It's very different.
24:51And in many respects, it's also very much the same.
24:54We have a deep thesis.
24:56It's actually the name of our other show.
24:58Our other show is called Digital Hospitality.
25:01What does digital hospitality mean to you?
25:07Oh, I wish I had prepared this question.
25:09I mean, I'll tell you one thing.
25:11When I'm in a restaurant,
25:13I don't want anything fucking digital.
25:15I want the least possible.
25:17I like a paper menu.
25:19I like the leather on the menu,
25:20or maybe the fact that you chose this kind of paper
25:23or this kind of maybe plastic stuff,
25:25but it tells me about the fact
25:27that it's authentic street food.
25:28I don't know.
25:29That's just a detail on the menu.
25:30But throughout, I like my waiter.
25:32I like, it's a moment of service.
25:34I want to be served.
25:35If not, I can cook at home.
25:37I'm actually a pretty good cook.
25:38So if I go to the restaurant, it's good.
25:41So for me, digital hospitality is everything
25:45that is not about having a good time.
25:48I just want you to make it as seamless as possible,
25:50which is my booking, my payment, all this stuff.
25:55Just super simple.
25:57And if I have to queue 10 minutes at the bar
26:00to eventually fight my six neighbors
26:03to speak to a barman that doesn't even have the time
26:05to make eye contact to get another beer,
26:08then I'm happy that you replace it by something digital
26:12because there is zero value in this.
26:15On the contrary, if we're having a great hospitality moment,
26:17I want my waiter.
26:18And by the way, I want my waiter to have the time
26:21to engage with me and not to be actually managing
26:24the seven credit cards for the table next door
26:26because they actually want to split
26:28a hundred dollars check into seven.
26:31And that's gonna take her or him literally 12 minutes
26:34where that person could actually be giving me
26:38some great hospitality to me and to the next table
26:41and to the table that just been sat
26:43and explain them the menu
26:45and what this restaurant is about
26:46and what are our favorite dishes.
26:47You can't do that if you're processing
26:49the next table's payment.
26:51Oh, and last, please give me a break.
26:53Don't tell me that the moment of payment
26:55is the moment where you have this great touch point
26:57to say goodbye.
26:58I want to pay now.
27:00And I want to pay because I want to go.
27:02So you're having me wait six minutes
27:05to look at me in the eye and say, was everything okay?
27:08What do you think?
27:09What answer do you think I'm gonna give?
27:10Of course it was okay.
27:11And in particular, if it was not,
27:12I'm gonna say it was okay because I really want to leave.
27:15My point is you're gonna have a way better touch point
27:18having an honest feedback from me
27:20if you just have more time on your hands.
27:22And when you bring me my coffee,
27:24which is probably the last moment,
27:27the last touch point,
27:28you have more time and say, oh,
27:30can you think of something we could have done better today?
27:32Or just can you think of a dish
27:34that could have been better today?
27:36That's a good moment of hospitality.
27:38And you can absolutely do that
27:40and have me pay with an instance,
27:43with a pay at table solution.
27:46So we believe, we build our barbecue
27:49like we build our media, low and slow.
27:52Good things take time.
27:54But there's something inherent about speed.
27:58And I heard you speak about speed
28:01and the value that it can add to an organization.
28:04And particularly how hard it is for bigger organizations
28:08to implement speed because there's so many decision makers.
28:11Can you talk about speed in the context of Sunday
28:15and scaling something big?
28:18Yes.
28:19It's a very interesting question.
28:21And because I can still remember
28:22when Big Mama was two people,
28:24then five people, then 20 people.
28:26And now it's a bigger organization.
28:28And Sunday used to be two people.
28:30Now we are 150.
28:31So it's not that big, it's still a small organization.
28:35I believe we are not that smart.
28:37I don't know about you, maybe you're smarter.
28:39But we at Big Mama, at Sunday with my team,
28:41we're not that smart, which is...
28:43We're not smart at all.
28:44We can spend another six months thinking about something.
28:48But actually, we're not going to do a better job
28:49as if we do it tomorrow.
28:51So let's just do stuff, get things done,
28:54and get feedback and learn from it.
28:57Don't overthink stuff.
28:58Just the value of speed is underestimated
29:00by corporations in general.
29:03And I think entrepreneurs in the zero to one
29:06and one to 10 phase, they often really understand that.
29:09And they go fast and they iterate
29:11and they make mistakes and they correct it.
29:14As you say, in a bigger organization,
29:16there are way more decision makers.
29:17I see it every day in Big Mama,
29:19which is a bigger company now.
29:21And we constantly, every six months,
29:24we're rethinking the organization chart
29:27to say, how can we have less decision makers
29:29and more ownership at one organization?
29:32How can we have more ownership at one or two people's level?
29:36With that woman, she owns the French business
29:39and she accounts for it every three months.
29:43It's a big business for us.
29:44Every three months, she accounts for it.
29:46But in the meantime, she does whatever she sees fit.
29:49And she keeps pushing stuff.
29:52It's our responsibility as CEOs of the company
29:55to create that environment
29:56where people feel they can make mistakes.
29:58And have I always been good at it?
30:01Definitely not.
30:04Because, by the way, I'm also...
30:08I'm very much into every detail like most entrepreneurs.
30:12And so people are afraid.
30:13They're afraid they're going to do something wrong.
30:15They're afraid their boss, the CEO, the founder
30:17is not going to be happy.
30:18And this is my responsibility.
30:19I created that fear.
30:21And it's my job to kill that fear,
30:24to make people feel they can...
30:26It's their company too.
30:27They can take risks.
30:29We're not good at it enough.
30:30We're not good enough at it.
30:32Definitely not.
30:32We can still get better.
30:35What is Big Mama's approach to social media,
30:38new media storytelling?
30:42That's a good one.
30:45I mean, there is a pre-TikTok and post-TikTok for us.
30:49I would say pre-TikTok,
30:50I have never spent a dollar
30:53in advertising or social media.
30:56Not one.
30:57I mean, we are a team.
30:59As I said, we're serving maybe 20,000 meals a day.
31:03And we have two people and one intern
31:08at group level for managing social media.
31:11Wow.
31:12Across seven countries.
31:14So it's, yes, we're spending money.
31:16That's, it's just our team.
31:20On the contrary, we, in Europe,
31:22we spend probably $500,
31:27$500 to $700 per square foot in building.
31:33In US equivalent, it's probably $1,200 to $1,500 per square foot.
31:41Wow.
31:42So we're in the very, very high bracket
31:44of spending money per square foot.
31:47That is my social media investment.
31:50My plates are handmade in Italy.
31:53And if you hit them on anything, they will be chipped.
31:57And I have to replace them.
31:58And they cost €35 a plate.
32:01Wow.
32:03That's my social media investment.
32:04Because when that plate comes on your table with food in it,
32:07and the table is incredible, authentic Carrara marble,
32:13and it's a $7,000 table,
32:16all of that for a pizza that costs $12.
32:20Yes, yes, that gives you a sense of,
32:23wow, what I'm seeing now is very beautiful.
32:26And the outcome of that process is,
32:29the first thing you think is,
32:30I'm looking forward to eating this.
32:33And then you think, or maybe the other way around,
32:35depending on if you're on Instagram or not,
32:37but the second thing you're thinking is,
32:38oh, let's take a picture of this.
32:40Yes.
32:41That is not, I don't think,
32:43and people have often,
32:44because we've been successful on social media,
32:46people have often said,
32:47well, you're building restaurants for social media.
32:50You're using social media.
32:51No, I'm making great restaurants to please people.
32:54It happens that in 2024, when people are pleased,
32:57they say it on social media.
33:00But my investment,
33:02where I put my money is in the design,
33:04is in the plate, is in the tablecloth,
33:06is in the waiter's uniform.
33:09It's in the lighting.
33:10This is what makes people happy.
33:13And it's an adjacent outcome
33:17that they say it on social media.
33:19But the first important thing
33:21is that they're happy because it looks good.
33:25And the first intent of it
33:26is not to make it look good for social media,
33:28it's to make it look good because you want to eat it
33:30and you want to be happy.
33:34In the world of TikTok,
33:36it's not radically different.
33:38It's still very much the same,
33:39but TikTok being based on videos,
33:42if you want to be present on TikTok
33:44and speak on TikTok as a company,
33:46it takes to make videos.
33:47So yes, it's a little more effort
33:49because I can, with an iPhone,
33:51I can make a great picture.
33:54I still can't make a great video.
33:56So I think we're questioning ourselves.
33:59I'm not quite sure we have taken the TikTok wave
34:02as we should,
34:04and it probably takes a little more investment
34:06and energy and help
34:08because speaking,
34:11telling our story on TikTok
34:13is different than telling our story on Instagram.
34:16And as a 40-year-old,
34:17after 40 years old,
34:20I probably, we probably need more,
34:21a little more help from
34:23people who understand that better.
34:24But I'm not as good,
34:26I don't have much advice to give there.
34:28It was,
34:29it was a brilliant,
34:30brilliant answer to the question.
34:31It's something that,
34:32you've reverse-engineered it.
34:36If you're producing something so beautiful in real life,
34:39the user-generated content that you're going to get as a brand,
34:42it's,
34:43it's done there for you.
34:45Yeah.
34:46Yeah, that's the beauty of social media.
34:48People do it for you.
34:48You don't have to
34:50do it yourself.
34:50You don't have to pay people to do it.
34:53People will do it for you.
34:56For Sunday specifically,
34:59how do you see the rollout happening in the United States?
35:02What does success look like?
35:06I mean,
35:08Sunday is an American company.
35:09We started in the US,
35:11in France,
35:11and in the UK at the same time.
35:13The start was slower three years ago because
35:17most of the tech and product at the time were based in Europe.
35:20And so on a daily basis,
35:22we would be working with European restaurants and groups,
35:25ranging from your
35:28truck to your thousand restaurants group.
35:31And so we would build feature for,
35:33for these people
35:34in the first place.
35:36Not understanding that
35:38big groups and corporations in America had very slightly different needs.
35:42Tips don't,
35:43don't work the same way here in America,
35:45etc.
35:46And
35:47I would say a year and a half ago,
35:48we started to have
35:50big clients
35:52and
35:53sort of
35:55very emblematic
35:57clients who were great restaurateurs and they really understood that it was
36:02giving their guests better hospitality.
36:04And so they started to push us like,
36:06hey,
36:07you need to make this better and that better and that better.
36:09And that's on tips,
36:10but that's also on accounting and reconciliation,
36:12like very boring stuff.
36:14Yep.
36:16And
36:17that was 18 months ago.
36:18And in the course of six months,
36:19we did incredible progress on our product,
36:22which led me a few months ago to move to America where I live now
36:26because
36:27because it's such an incredible market for it.
36:30In America,
36:30most people,
36:31when you pay,
36:32you have to
36:33hail your bill.
36:33It comes as a paper to your table,
36:36then you put your card,
36:37then you have to wait and then sign and write a tip.
36:40It's even worse than in Europe.
36:42It's even harder to pay here.
36:44So Sunday has even more value in America.
36:47And by the way,
36:48payment in America is way more expensive than in Europe.
36:51In America,
36:51you're going to pay 2.5,
36:53maybe 3% for payment.
36:56With Sunday,
36:56you're saving 1%.
36:58It's 1% free cash flow.
37:00If you make 5% cash flow,
37:02we're adding,
37:03we're moving it from five to six.
37:05It's another almost 15% more reason to wake up in the morning.
37:08It's a lot.
37:09So our value,
37:12our product has even more value in America.
37:14And
37:15and I think American restaurateurs,
37:17even more than people in Europe,
37:19are obsessed with hospitality.
37:22In Europe,
37:23restaurateurs are obsessed with
37:25making it perfect,
37:28which is,
37:28oh,
37:29it has to be perfect food and perfect dressing and perfect plate.
37:32And they're sort of very anal about restaurateurs,
37:35in a sense,
37:36for sure,
37:37which is,
37:37which has,
37:38which has its value and which has its,
37:40it's creating something in America.
37:42I think they're a little more,
37:43a little less anal,
37:45but they're more about you as a unique guest passing my door.
37:49And it's not about,
37:49I'm going to feed you my idea of perfection.
37:52It's about,
37:52I'm just going to try to adjust to what,
37:55what are your expectations right now?
37:57And Danny Meyer and many other people have written a lot of books on success and
38:01Willie Goudara,
38:01et cetera,
38:02have written great books about this,
38:04which is a very American mentality,
38:06which you don't find as much in Europe.
38:08And,
38:09and I think for that reason,
38:10people in America are actually really understanding what we build on Sunday.
38:13So what does success look like?
38:15I mean,
38:15we're soon going to pass a billion dollar process a year in America,
38:19just in America.
38:21We're probably going to be quadrupling this next year.
38:26We're only present right now in Atlanta,
38:28Chicago.
38:29We're starting in New York and Miami and Philly.
38:32We haven't even touched the Midwest and the West coast.
38:36So it's really only the beginning and our first clients.
38:40Now that the people we work with are James Beard award or restaurants group from
38:48five to 50 restaurants owner led because these groups are understanding before
38:54anyone else,
38:55the value of being more hospitable.
38:58But I think we're going to grow on one side to single shops and on the other
39:01side on bigger groups.
39:04Big mama,
39:05which markets in the United States are you exploring?
39:08Can you share?
39:09Yes,
39:10for a long time.
39:10We said,
39:11Oh,
39:11well,
39:11we want to go to the US only to realize that the US was just so many different
39:16countries.
39:17It's so different.
39:18So it's all different countries.
39:20Yeah.
39:20Well,
39:20it's,
39:21it was not obvious to Miami to New York.
39:23There are,
39:23it's all a different country.
39:24A hundred percent.
39:26From coming from London,
39:28where I used to live,
39:29it's,
39:30it was not obvious to me.
39:33It's very probably going to be Florida because,
39:39because my,
39:39my founder,
39:40my co founder is pretty going to move there.
39:42Okay.
39:42He lives in Madrid.
39:43It's all family.
39:44Everyone speaks Spanish,
39:45et cetera.
39:45So Florida is pretty good place for him to move in.
39:49And actually Jody,
39:55one of my favorite restaurants are in America.
40:00Told me from ESOD in New York told me,
40:02you know,
40:02you're,
40:03you're,
40:03you're asking yourself too many questions.
40:05Just find a nice corner that you care for and that you're like,
40:09and just try to make the life of people walking around this corner every day,
40:13a little better.
40:15And I was like,
40:16shit,
40:17this is such a good piece of advice.
40:19And when you,
40:20when you want to look at opening in America,
40:22you're,
40:23you're boning the ocean.
40:24Just find a nice little corner and make life around that corner a little better
40:28every day for everyone living there,
40:30which is what we did 10 years ago when we started in France,
40:34which is what we just did last month when we opened in Brussels,
40:37which is a totally new city for us.
40:39And Brussels is not in France for people in America.
40:43My point is she was so right.
40:46And so if Tigran,
40:47my co-founder is going to move to Florida,
40:49then we should open in Florida to start here,
40:52make one great restaurants,
40:53which is hard enough.
40:55Then maybe one day we'll do two and then three,
40:57but let's start with doing one great restaurants next to where he lives.
41:01Amazing.
41:02If you guys want to reach out to me,
41:03it's at Sean P.
41:04Walsh F S H a W N P W a L C H.
41:08Walsh F S H a W N P W a L C H E F.
41:13We appreciate you for listening,
41:14Victor.
41:15What's the best place for people to connect with Sunday and with big mama?
41:19Victor dot lager,
41:21L U G G E R at gmail.com.
41:23Beautiful,
41:25Victor.
41:26This wasn't enough time.
41:28So I will hope that when you do open a big mama's that I can bring my team and
41:34we can do an in-person extension of all of the things that you're doing,
41:40not only with Sunday,
41:40but with big mama.
41:42I'm so excited for what you're going to bring your perspective,
41:45not only to the United States,
41:47but globally.
41:48This was just truly an honor for me.
41:51Thank you very much for having for having me as always.
41:54Stay curious,
41:55get involved and don't be afraid to ask for help.
41:57We will catch you all next week.
42:00Thank you for listening to restaurant influencers.
42:03If you want to get in touch with me,
42:04I am weirdly available at Sean P.
42:07Walsh FSH a WN P W ALCH EF Cali barbecue.
42:13Media has other shows.
42:15You can check out digital hospitality.
42:17We've been doing that show since 2017.
42:20We also just launched a show season to family style on YouTube with toast.
42:25And if you are a restaurant brand or a hospitality brand and you're looking to
42:29launch your own show Cali barbecue media can help you.
42:33Recently,
42:33we just launched room for seconds with Greg Majewski.
42:37It is an incredible insight into leadership into hospitality into Enterprise
42:43restaurants and franchise franchisee relationships.
42:47Take a look at room for seconds.
42:49And if you're ready to start a show reach out to us be the show dot media.
42:54We can't wait to work with you.