For Andy Husbands, the renowned Pitmaster, author, and owner of The Smoke Shop, the culinary path has been a lifelong pursuit fueled by passion and inspiration.
Watch now to learn about following early inspirations to become a chef, making award-winning barbecue, and the benefits of switching to Toast for his point of sale system.
Watch now to learn about following early inspirations to become a chef, making award-winning barbecue, and the benefits of switching to Toast for his point of sale system.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome to Restaurant Influencers
00:13 presented by Entrepreneur.
00:14 I am your host, Sean Walsh,
00:16 a founder of Cali BBQ and Cali BBQ Media.
00:19 In life, in the restaurant business,
00:22 and in the new creator economy,
00:24 we learn through lessons and stories.
00:26 Today, I have Andy Husbands,
00:28 one of the greatest storytellers on earth,
00:31 a man that I have come to know
00:33 because of this beautiful cookbook,
00:37 "Recipe of Love," it's called "Pitmaster."
00:40 I remember in my barbecue journey,
00:42 once I found this book, I said,
00:46 "One day, I'm gonna have Andy on the show,
00:48 "and today's the day."
00:49 Andy, welcome.
00:51 - Happy to be here.
00:52 - Seriously, it's so cool.
00:54 I got to go to your restaurant earlier today,
00:57 spent time with Zach Oates, who's been on this show,
01:00 founder of Ovation, but more importantly,
01:02 I got to learn about what you've been up to,
01:05 your career as a restaurateur, your career as an author,
01:08 you put on cooking classes, you have whiskey clubs.
01:11 I'm excited for the audience to learn more
01:15 about what makes Andy tick.
01:16 - Happy to tell you whatever I can.
01:19 - Where in the world is your favorite stadium,
01:22 stage, or venue?
01:23 - Wow, favorite stadium, stage, or venue.
01:26 Well, if I was to go with memory,
01:28 which is no longer around,
01:29 it was this place called The Rocket.
01:31 - The Rocket, okay.
01:32 - Maybe it's still in another name,
01:34 in Providence, Rhode Island.
01:36 I spent my formative years shooting pool
01:38 and seeing unknown bands like Primus and Nirvana,
01:43 and small little bands like that that you never knew.
01:45 But there was a lot of, I mean,
01:46 there's a hundred other bands that I couldn't name
01:49 that you don't know and I don't remember.
01:51 So, for that, but here in Boston,
01:57 geez, is it the MGM?
01:59 It's attached to Fenway Park.
02:02 And I recently saw a couple bands there
02:05 and I really enjoyed it.
02:07 You know, what they're doing today
02:08 with music and sound is phenomenal.
02:10 - How many, the venue in Rhode Island,
02:12 how many did it seat?
02:13 - It wasn't a seat.
02:14 - It was a stand.
02:15 - It was a dirty bar.
02:17 - How many packed in there?
02:17 - I think when it was packed,
02:18 it was, you know, a couple hundred, maybe.
02:20 - A couple hundred.
02:21 - Yeah.
02:22 - Okay, we're gonna go back there.
02:22 We're gonna go back in time.
02:24 A couple hundred, we're gonna make it intimate.
02:25 People that listen to this show, watch the show,
02:28 we talk about playing the game within the game.
02:31 Restaurants, such a difficult game to play.
02:34 People that do it and do it successfully,
02:37 but also find other avenues to do it,
02:39 are people that we have on the show to share the secrets.
02:42 You've done that.
02:44 I'm gonna put you with the mic, TEDx style,
02:47 and say, Andy, tell us your story.
02:49 - Well, let's start with the premise
02:54 that I disagree with what you started with.
02:56 - Tell me, I love an antithesis.
02:58 - People say, oh, this business is so hard,
03:01 it's like we're patting ourselves on the back,
03:03 look what we do.
03:04 (laughing)
03:06 And of course, when I meet people from the business,
03:08 you know, they're outside the business,
03:09 my neighbors, I meet them,
03:11 you know, like, oh, you must work all the time,
03:14 you know, you're in the restaurant business.
03:15 It depends on how you define work, I guess.
03:18 - I love it.
03:19 - I remember when I first started dating my wife,
03:20 she's like, you love being there.
03:23 I'm like, yeah, but it's Friday night,
03:24 I'd rather be with you.
03:26 But if I'm gonna go, I'm gonna enjoy the heck out of it.
03:29 So it's how you look at it, and you get right with it.
03:33 Sure, it's challenging, but, ah, man,
03:36 I think being a medic seems challenging to me,
03:39 or a nurse.
03:41 Those are the people that have hard jobs.
03:43 I got a great job, I get to cook food,
03:45 and talk to people, and it's really cool.
03:49 There are times and things that are really difficult,
03:52 of course, but I just couldn't go through life
03:56 walking around saying, I got such a hard job.
03:58 And I know you didn't mean it that way,
04:00 but that's kind of like, I don't take that premise.
04:02 I take a premise of I got a real good, challenging job.
04:06 - Tell us about your challenging job,
04:08 this challenging career.
04:09 - So how did I get here, I think was your question, right?
04:11 That's all I'm gonna answer this.
04:13 All I've ever wanted to do was cook.
04:14 Since I was 14, since I was in fourth grade,
04:16 I did a demo how to make donuts.
04:18 That was in class, and I was making donuts in fourth grade.
04:22 - Really?
04:22 - By myself, latchkey kid, no one around.
04:26 I was frying donuts.
04:28 So it's something, I'd always had a passion for cooking.
04:35 And then I started working in restaurants,
04:38 and I just thought it was the coolest people,
04:40 with the funnest thing, you know?
04:43 You get tricked a little bit, because what happens is
04:46 this is a really great career, or thing you're doing,
04:50 and you stay up late, right?
04:52 You're like, this is great, I'm staying up late,
04:53 and meeting people, having a blast.
04:55 But as you get more and more involved,
04:56 you have to actually still stay up late,
04:58 but get up earlier and earlier and earlier,
05:00 and your days become longer.
05:02 But again, I enjoy it.
05:04 And I knew my path, my path was gonna be,
05:08 I worked in some small, single-unit restaurants.
05:11 I went to Johnson & Wales.
05:13 I was an awful high school student,
05:15 and I was a superior culinary student,
05:18 and also food service management.
05:20 I loved every minute of it.
05:22 I loved this business, and every part of it.
05:26 Even the accounting, I love numbers, right?
05:27 Like, these are just, I loved it.
05:29 And then I worked for some really good
05:32 single-unit operators, most notably Chris Schlesinger,
05:36 who wrote the book on grilling,
05:38 which is called "Thrill of the Grill."
05:40 And you have to imagine, this book is great,
05:42 buy it now if you can find it.
05:44 It was released in 1984.
05:46 - That's awesome.
05:46 - Way before people were doing grilling and stuff, right?
05:49 So, man, it was an amazing time working for him.
05:52 He taught me not just how to be a better chef,
05:57 but to be a man.
05:58 And I don't mean that like in a macho male thing.
06:01 I mean, to be a good person, and to be stand-up,
06:05 and treat people well, and take care of your team,
06:09 and things like that.
06:10 And all I wanted to be was him.
06:13 And so, he'd written books, and I wrote books.
06:16 He opened his own restaurant, I opened my own restaurant.
06:19 And I did that for 20 years.
06:20 I had a kind of a fancier restaurant
06:21 in the South End of Boston.
06:23 It was a great living, a great job,
06:25 but toward the end, I knew I was bored,
06:27 and I wanted to do something new.
06:29 So, I partnered with this guy,
06:33 never had a partner before,
06:35 and we went after opening up
06:37 a multi-unit barbecue restaurant.
06:39 And that's how I get here.
06:42 - How many units do we have now?
06:44 - We have six today.
06:45 I have one lease signed, so definitely will be seven.
06:50 But I think maybe you could do one to three more next year,
06:54 or this year, I should say.
06:55 - Barbecue Smoke Shop.
06:57 - The Smoke Shop Barbecue.
06:58 - Smoke Shop Barbecue.
07:00 So, Smoke Shop Barbecue, where and why with the name?
07:03 - You know what, when you do things,
07:09 sometimes you kind of regret doing them.
07:11 Smoke Shop, you know, this is before all,
07:13 we have all these smoke shops now.
07:15 - Before there were smoke shops?
07:17 How's your SEO doing?
07:18 - Yeah, right?
07:19 I mean, it's a battle,
07:20 but we get called Smoke House a lot,
07:22 which I don't care, you know, just come,
07:24 doesn't matter what you call us.
07:26 It's going good, you know?
07:28 We decided the name,
07:30 we worked for the branding company called Black Coffee.
07:33 I do them disservice by calling them a mom-pop,
07:36 but it's a husband-wife team, and they are amazing.
07:40 And what they helped us with, develop our brand.
07:44 I could show you this thing,
07:45 I wish I had this document to show you.
07:46 And you know what, I'll send it to you,
07:47 and you can put it up. - We'll send it to me.
07:49 Yeah, we'll put it up in the video.
07:49 - It's called Who We Are and Who We're Not.
07:51 - Cool.
07:52 - And they put it together before we opened,
07:54 and I still go back to it,
07:55 and I still send it to people,
07:57 and it just tells you exactly, they nailed it,
07:59 by lots of interviewing and talking to me,
08:01 and figuring out and hearing my dreams
08:02 of what I wanted to be.
08:04 And it's kind of almost like our guiding path, our map.
08:08 And we wanted a strong brand that we knew we could grow.
08:13 When I had my first restaurant,
08:15 I knew nothing about branding.
08:16 So it's important to have a strong brand.
08:19 - I love that you brought that up.
08:20 It's something that I don't think,
08:22 I know we definitely don't talk enough about on this show,
08:25 but when you're coming up with a mission statement,
08:27 one of the most difficult things is to talk about
08:31 what are the things that we stand for,
08:33 but the unlock comes from, well, what do you stand against?
08:36 - Yeah.
08:37 - What do you stand against?
08:39 (laughing)
08:40 - I don't stand against anything.
08:41 I mean, for my business, we just wanna be
08:44 the best barbecue restaurant we can be.
08:46 - What does it mean to be a bad barbecue restaurant?
08:49 - Crappy barbecue.
08:52 (laughing)
08:53 - So you stand against crappy barbecue.
08:55 - Yeah, there's just people, but it's all subjective, right?
08:58 So I certainly will never ever say I'm the best.
09:00 We'd like to be a close second or third to the best.
09:04 You could tell I'm not from the South.
09:05 In fact, I will honestly tell you, I've never,
09:07 I never had a rib, real rib, real pulled pork,
09:11 until I was 22 years old, working for Chris Schlesinger.
09:14 I had a lot of ketchup to do.
09:16 It took a long time to get good at what we do.
09:19 And we consider ourselves kind of tribute barbecue.
09:22 So I've traveled the country many times
09:26 in my competition life.
09:27 And look, I do Texas style brisket.
09:31 Would I say it's authentic?
09:33 No.
09:34 I also make kimchi.
09:35 I would not say that's authentic.
09:37 But we want a place so that people feel comfortable
09:41 and feel welcome.
09:42 I kind of, our policy is to treat everybody like grandma.
09:45 Right?
09:46 - That's a great policy.
09:47 - You know, which is nice because grandma's not always right.
09:50 And you could tell grandma to pump the brakes
09:53 on the drinks, you know?
09:55 So it's like you treat her with love and reverence,
09:58 but you still need to be respectful,
10:02 yet everyone's got a place kind of thing.
10:05 - When you wrote your first cookbook,
10:07 what was the inspiration?
10:09 - The first cookbook, which is called "Fearless Chef,"
10:12 I just kind of want to,
10:13 always my goal is from the classes I teach
10:16 to the cookbooks I write,
10:18 I want people to walk away going, "I can do this."
10:21 I want them to go, "Yeah, this is doable for me."
10:25 I want them to feel comfortable.
10:28 And I think sometimes people think things
10:30 are so complicated, and they're really not,
10:32 if you just kind of practice, you know?
10:35 - You remember the first time
10:39 that you started going all in on barbecue?
10:42 - What do you mean by that?
10:44 - When you found out that this was kind of a bigger calling?
10:47 - Well, I--
10:51 - I mean, you can't write a book like that,
10:52 do the work that you do.
10:53 - Yeah.
10:54 - And not say that there's a deeper,
10:57 - I mean, I have a--
10:57 - Deeper love for the slope, for the slope.
11:00 - I think a lot about, that's a great question.
11:02 I think a lot about it.
11:03 So you know, I've been competing,
11:05 I'm a member of a team called IQ.
11:08 We're a very successful barbecue team.
11:12 Built with a bunch of guys, and we're all best friends.
11:15 I really want to point out that I'm not the lead guy,
11:18 it's a guy named Chris Hart.
11:19 He's the guy I wrote that book with.
11:21 He's a tech guy, he's my best friend, he's a great dude.
11:25 But people think I run it, I don't want anyone to think that.
11:29 I'm just back there, you know, helping out as best I can.
11:31 But as we started competing,
11:35 we kind of got, kept going down the rabbit hole.
11:39 And at some point, I think we kind of poked our heads out
11:41 and said, oh, wow, we're in this, you know?
11:43 And we're definitely,
11:45 and that was definitely before
11:46 we won the world championships.
11:47 But you know, we just kind of realized
11:49 that we were all very passionate about it.
11:52 And that wasn't just about, as we were talking earlier,
11:55 barbecue isn't just about the ribs, you know,
11:58 the pulled pork, it's about a life, it's about a style,
12:01 it's about people, it's about a community.
12:03 You know, if you think about it,
12:06 if you were to come over, you know,
12:08 and I'm like, I'm gonna cook a brisket for you,
12:10 and you're like, that's great, super psyched.
12:13 Well, I just spent 14 hours of my time into that meal.
12:18 - Yeah.
12:20 - Like, that's like love, that is cool, right?
12:23 To put that energy and that time into something, you know?
12:26 So I always love it if you know Tuffy, Tuffy Stone,
12:31 whose real name is Percy or something like that.
12:34 (laughing)
12:35 - Percy?
12:36 - I'm not sure his real name is Percy,
12:36 but it's something like that.
12:37 - It's not Tuffy, though.
12:39 - I'm telling you it's not Tuffy.
12:41 And I love you, Tuffy, you know that.
12:43 - Huge fans of Tuffy.
12:44 - But you know, his thing is
12:45 nobody cooks a brisket for themself, right?
12:49 Now, crazy guys, me, we might do that.
12:51 - Yeah.
12:52 - Maybe I'm gonna cook a brisket this weekend
12:53 just to goof around.
12:55 And that's kind of a cool premise about barbecue
12:57 is it's not about you.
12:58 - Yeah.
12:59 - I'll cook a steak myself,
13:00 but I don't cook a brisket for myself.
13:03 Cook that for otherbody, somebody else.
13:05 So like, you're doing this thing
13:07 and you have to extrapolate and think about then
13:09 the community and the people and the history, right,
13:13 of barbecue in America.
13:15 Man, super cool.
13:16 - Can you share about barbecue culture?
13:19 I know the beginning of this book,
13:21 you have Amy Mills and Mike Mills.
13:23 - Sure.
13:24 - The legendary 17th Street Barbecue
13:26 who I've been so fortunate,
13:29 all the podcasting that I've done,
13:30 all the shows I've done,
13:31 was able to sit down with Mike Mills and Amy Mills,
13:33 both together while he was still alive.
13:36 And he actually visited our restaurant in San Diego
13:39 and the things that he said,
13:40 the curiosity that he showed to me
13:44 and the reverence of just the fact
13:47 that we were willing to be crazy enough in San Diego
13:49 to cook the craft, but he cared.
13:52 - Yeah.
13:53 - And there's a reason why you put them
13:55 in the beginning of the book.
13:56 Can you share that with us?
13:58 - Well, they kind of mentored us.
13:59 I miss Mike a lot.
14:03 He was so good to us.
14:05 I love the fact he's always learning.
14:07 I was making sausage one time
14:09 and one of the ways I do it is I actually,
14:11 when I'm emulsifying, I add water.
14:13 And he was like, he couldn't wrap his mind around it.
14:15 He's like, it's gonna be wet.
14:16 It's gonna, water's gonna, I'm like, no,
14:18 watch, it's gonna emulsify
14:19 and then it's gonna make it juicy and you'll see.
14:22 And he was so, again, curious.
14:24 - Curious.
14:25 - I love that about him.
14:27 But you'd just be sitting there waiting
14:28 for those little barbecue-isms
14:30 that would come out of his mouth.
14:32 I just wait, I loved it.
14:35 The community is really fascinating.
14:39 It's really, I feel like everyone's a cousin.
14:41 We kind of all know each other.
14:43 And if we don't know you, we know somebody
14:45 you used to compete with or compete against
14:48 in the competition world, but even in the restaurants,
14:51 we all kind of know each other and watch each other
14:53 and know what each one's doing.
14:54 I really think it's neat.
14:56 And I think what's really neat is you can go anywhere
15:01 and just be like, hey, this is who I am.
15:02 Can I check out your pits?
15:03 And they'll be like, come on back.
15:05 Carve you off a little something, show you something.
15:08 It's just like family.
15:09 I think it's about respect and understanding.
15:12 We all do different things and it doesn't matter to me
15:16 who does what better.
15:18 That's kind of not really the point.
15:20 The point is more that we all are kind of striving
15:23 to do the best we can.
15:24 - Can you share a story about winning
15:26 the world championship?
15:27 - Sure.
15:31 So, I'll tell a story, not about that.
15:36 I'll tell a story.
15:37 This is a more fun one.
15:38 (laughing)
15:39 The world championship is bonkers.
15:41 I mean, I'll tell you that when you're at the Jack,
15:44 the first year we went there, we made the rookie mistake
15:46 of really enjoying the--
15:48 - The Jack.
15:49 - The gentlemen Jack.
15:50 And it's like the Super Bowl.
15:52 You gotta be focused.
15:53 We did not focus.
15:54 And our team was notorious for being unfocused.
15:58 But we were in Kansas City at the Royal.
16:03 It's 500 and something teams.
16:06 And the team next to us was from Texas.
16:08 And they were giving us such a hard time.
16:12 What are you Yankees doing here?
16:15 You need to go home.
16:17 You don't know anything about barista.
16:19 You don't know anything.
16:20 And it was nonstop and it was pretty intense.
16:25 So, the first night is the open.
16:28 And if you haven't been to the Royal,
16:30 the first night is the open and there's a party.
16:32 And it is the biggest party you've ever seen.
16:33 30,000 people with open containers walking around.
16:36 And we really, really, really focused on that party.
16:40 Man, I think our friends from Jamaica were there.
16:43 The Jamaican team, Gary and they had white rum.
16:47 If you've ever had that Jamaican white rum.
16:48 And it was just crazy.
16:50 The next morning, it looked like the scene
16:53 from "The Hangover".
16:54 And everyone's kind of like trying to come to,
16:57 somebody's missing, there's cans everywhere.
17:01 And we have a schedule that we're supposed to follow.
17:04 And that didn't really happen.
17:05 - Oh no.
17:06 - And we came in, I should say,
17:10 how we came to was at 7 a.m. when quiet hours are over,
17:16 the team next to us, the Texas team,
17:18 took their speakers and turned them toward us
17:20 and played "Flight of the Valkyries".
17:23 - Come on.
17:23 - As loud as they possibly could.
17:24 And it was like, dun, dun, dun.
17:27 I'm like, oh my God.
17:28 So that, and we lost.
17:32 We came in like, I don't know,
17:33 I think it was 80 teams in the open and we came in 70th.
17:36 Came back, we're all hungover.
17:39 We got in a huge fight with our team.
17:41 We're all arguing with each other
17:42 and who screwed up and who did what.
17:44 Finally get it back together.
17:46 We're all brothers, we love each other.
17:48 After the fight was over, crack a beer,
17:50 sit down, let's redo this.
17:52 Chris Hart gets us to focus.
17:55 And like, okay, let's go over the plan for tonight.
17:57 We focused.
17:58 Still had a beer or two, but focused.
18:00 And you compete all night again.
18:04 Everybody does their shifts.
18:05 Everybody's doing right.
18:06 We think we're doing good.
18:08 We do all our turn-ins, all the sides.
18:10 It's like seven, eight categories.
18:12 We get into the awards.
18:13 They take like three hours
18:14 'cause they're giving everybody
18:15 their cousin an award for something.
18:16 And then they start doing the awards.
18:18 The 20th place when you have 500 teams,
18:19 it takes forever.
18:20 We got no calls.
18:23 Not one call.
18:24 And I'm videotaping this whole thing.
18:27 I'm videotaping Chris and he's yelling at me,
18:28 "Turn that camera off."
18:30 Well, you know, very colorful language also.
18:32 And the last call of the day
18:36 before the grand champion, reserve and grand
18:39 is first place brisket.
18:40 And I'm like, I'm gonna get Chris on video
18:42 losing this whole thing.
18:43 So I start filming him.
18:44 He's like growls at me.
18:46 And then they go, and the winner is,
18:49 and here's I, and there's all these teams.
18:51 I smell smoke.
18:52 I did this, I did that.
18:53 And it was IQ and pandemonium.
18:58 - Come on, you have that video?
19:00 - Yes.
19:01 - Yeah, we need that video.
19:02 - I have it, I can show it to you.
19:04 - We're getting that video.
19:05 If possible, it's going on this episode.
19:06 - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can show you that.
19:08 Mikey Z from Motley Q is in it prominently.
19:12 He's a good friend of ours.
19:13 He used to, and it was just like,
19:15 it was the craziest most, you know.
19:17 So when you talked about what's it like winning,
19:19 that rush, that feeling so down,
19:22 that feeling, all that work for two days
19:24 and the hangover and the drinks and the laughs
19:26 and all that stuff and just boom.
19:30 And you know, we have Chris saying on tape,
19:33 you know, I'm like, Chris, can you say something?
19:34 He's like, we just won brisket in Kansas City.
19:38 And you hear a cow go moo.
19:40 But he used colorful language.
19:42 And it was just an amazing moment.
19:45 When you get this big golf check with a lot of money on it
19:48 and a bigger thing.
19:49 And we took that golf check and we took that award
19:53 and we walked outside and put it on the Texas team table.
19:57 (laughing)
19:58 And told them, this is what we know about brisket.
20:00 - That's great.
20:01 - But I want to tell you, had I needed salt,
20:03 had I needed a bandaid, had I needed anything,
20:06 that team would have gave us whatever we wanted.
20:08 - Absolutely, that's true.
20:09 - You know, people give you a hard time,
20:12 but people aren't effing with you.
20:13 - Yeah.
20:14 What have you learned from the competition world
20:17 that has carried over to cooking barbecue,
20:21 competing every day for the hearts and minds
20:26 of people here in Boston for barbecue?
20:29 - Well, I think to get good at anything,
20:30 you want to run a race, you got to do the reps.
20:33 So having done the reps for many, many years,
20:37 it helped me get a vision of what I wanted to do.
20:39 But competition and, you know,
20:43 the way I like to talk about competition barbecue,
20:45 it's like the Lance Armstrong of barbecue.
20:49 It's like jacked full of stuff, needle full of stuff.
20:53 (laughing)
20:54 - That's great.
20:54 - And we don't do that in the restaurants.
20:56 - We can't do that.
20:57 - Right?
20:58 It's not, it's like, what it's like is NASCAR.
21:01 You don't drive a NASCAR,
21:04 a common person doesn't drive a NASCAR, right?
21:07 - Yes.
21:07 - But some of that stuff that happens in NASCAR
21:09 trickles down to your Camry.
21:11 - Yeah.
21:12 - And so there are some tricks and some things,
21:14 even like we do a reverse rub.
21:16 So, you know, we'll sprinkle a little bit.
21:18 Now I'm sure plenty of people's done it, I created it,
21:20 but we do that on our meats.
21:22 And so it gives it that little,
21:23 as you know, like a fancy restaurant,
21:24 when they put a little like melt on salt on the steak,
21:27 you know, same kind of thing, it gives it that pop,
21:29 you know, and so that's something that we did
21:31 in competition that we now do in the restaurant.
21:33 So there's other things like that.
21:35 How we do our chicken is very similar process
21:38 to how we do it in the restaurant.
21:40 I'm not at liberty to go into that, but yeah.
21:43 So we've used a lot of the tricks and things that we do.
21:46 - When you think about barbecue, I mean, we're here,
21:51 it's the toast sales kickoff.
21:53 You had the toast sales team at your restaurant.
21:57 They're sponsors of this show, we're toast customers.
22:00 I just interviewed Amman Narang, the new CEO.
22:03 You and I are both in the craft barbecue game,
22:06 running restaurants on different sides of the country,
22:09 but we both made decisions on technology to go with toast.
22:13 Can you share why did you make that decision?
22:16 - Well, I mean, I'm gonna tell you, toast is intuitive.
22:22 It's easy.
22:23 They make it easy.
22:27 I don't think I, I mean, we train,
22:29 but I think you could put somebody in front of it.
22:30 I think I could put my five-year-old daughter
22:32 in front of it and she'd figure out
22:33 or order herself some French fries.
22:35 I think she could do that.
22:36 And so that's really nice.
22:39 But the impetus, the reason was during the pandemic,
22:44 there was a beer garden being built next to us
22:46 and they wanted us to do the food and we needed QR codes.
22:49 The company I was working with that had my systems before
22:53 was like, yeah, we think we can do that.
22:55 And if we can, it costs $7,000 or some number.
22:58 And whatever that number was,
22:59 happened to be the very close to the number
23:01 that would cost me to bring on toast.
23:04 And I'd always wanted to do that.
23:06 And I also did the math because I have investors, right?
23:10 So I've got a fiduciary responsibility,
23:11 not just to my investors,
23:12 I have fiduciary responsibility to everybody in my life.
23:14 That's the people I work with, that's my family,
23:17 that's my investors, everybody.
23:19 I've got to do the right thing, right?
23:20 And I got to be judicious with the money I spend.
23:23 And I was looking at it and I'm like,
23:25 I figured out the people that,
23:27 'cause all our orders were a lot of those orders
23:29 during the pandemic, especially were coming in
23:31 through our iPad and then you enter them in.
23:36 Well, just think about all the mistakes we made,
23:37 first of all.
23:38 There's no way we didn't make mistakes doing data entry.
23:40 So much pressure, so many orders, get them in, get them in.
23:43 But also I had to pay that person.
23:45 So that math also happened to be
23:48 about the same amount of money annually
23:49 that I would have to put in to get toast.
23:52 So it just made sense.
23:54 And I knew how great they were.
23:56 I knew they were a Boston company.
23:57 So I was psyched about that.
23:59 And in retrospect, now that I've onboarded with them,
24:04 they've opened up my world to other things that I can do.
24:09 So we're onboarding like a CRM loyalty, right?
24:15 And it's just easy.
24:16 Whereas, gosh, if I'd ever wanted to do that
24:20 with another company, they'd be like, yeah, no.
24:22 You can use ours.
24:23 Or use this other third party company, OYO or whatever.
24:28 And I don't know them, no respect to them.
24:31 But why would I hire another company
24:33 just to get another company in?
24:34 It doesn't make sense.
24:36 - Yeah, I think one of the cool things
24:37 that you shared when we were meeting this morning
24:40 was the fact that it doesn't feel like a vendor.
24:44 It feels more like a partner
24:46 where you actually are excited.
24:47 They had Jose Andres present at one of their Spark events
24:51 and you're logging in and you're like,
24:53 I can't believe I'm voluntarily wanting
24:56 to be a part of community
24:58 and connection, knowing what Jose has done.
25:00 And I watched the same presentation wanting to see.
25:04 It's interesting because we don't expect it.
25:08 Being in the restaurant game for as long,
25:11 my previous point of sale company,
25:13 I made the joke that nobody contacted me
25:16 until I made a toast unboxing video.
25:18 Once I made a toast unboxing video,
25:20 all of a sudden I had these three different executives
25:22 on LinkedIn going like, hey, Sean,
25:25 what's going on with your point of sale?
25:26 But that's not the right way.
25:28 No, and I would say, I think those guys,
25:32 I'm not gonna name them, but they're like Polaroid.
25:35 Well, Polaroid woke up one day and was like,
25:37 oh, geez, there's digital now.
25:39 You know, like these guys, taxicabs,
25:42 all these should realize that this technology is coming.
25:46 Right, it's coming.
25:47 Luckily, technology hasn't taken away pitmasters,
25:51 but it is coming.
25:52 And so people need to be aware.
25:56 Yeah, so you feel like they're a partner.
25:58 They listen.
25:59 I'm a vice president of the
26:02 Massachusetts Restaurant Association,
26:04 and one of the women that's on my board,
26:06 she's also on, I think, some kind of consumer board
26:09 or something like that with Toast.
26:11 She's always talking to them and giving suggestions.
26:15 Yeah, you know Kathy?
26:16 - Of course I know Kathy.
26:18 If you know Kathy, you know Kathy.
26:19 We love Kathy.
26:21 - She's great.
26:22 - Turner Seafoods.
26:23 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's great.
26:25 So, you know, it's just, it's neat how they are,
26:29 you know, partnering with us, and it's just so smart.
26:32 And then the last thing I'm gonna say is,
26:34 I don't know, you know, this is how my business works,
26:35 and other businesses work similar,
26:37 but those companies, dinosaur companies,
26:41 it costs you $25,000, $35,000 to put their systems in.
26:45 - Yeah.
26:46 - Now I gotta pay back 1.25 on every dollar I spend.
26:50 So that's a giant number.
26:54 So the buy-in with Toast is so much cheaper also.
26:57 And, you know, they should have known,
27:00 like there's these pinch points,
27:01 and I'd rather spend that extra money,
27:05 let's just say the delta is 20,000,
27:08 let's just say, well 15, I don't care,
27:09 whatever number you want,
27:11 I'd rather spend that 15,000 on the customer's experience.
27:16 'Cause they don't experience anything from a screen
27:20 that I punch in some stuff.
27:22 - Yeah.
27:23 What does it mean to be a pit master?
27:25 (laughing)
27:26 - It's like, what does it mean to be a chef, right?
27:28 (laughing)
27:30 You know, look, there's all different levels,
27:33 and all different types, and you know,
27:36 I have friends, my friend's son,
27:37 they call him a pit master, and he is.
27:40 - Yeah.
27:40 - Right, he's out there trying to do his thing.
27:43 I think he's 12, and I think that's great.
27:45 You know, for me, it's somebody who kind of,
27:51 you know, knows how to run a pit, you know,
27:53 and cook good stuff out of it.
27:54 But I think, again, good is subjective,
27:56 so somebody who likes to smoke meats.
27:59 I think in the bare, in the bare, bare use of the word.
28:03 - One of the things that we were discussing
28:07 at your restaurant was, which was very refreshing to me,
28:11 was you were talking about all your failures.
28:13 You know, it's easy to come on a show for entrepreneur
28:18 and talk about all the successes of all the restaurants,
28:21 and all the cookbooks, and all the things
28:23 that you have going on, the followers,
28:26 but a lot of the times we just, we mess up, we screw up.
28:31 - Sure. - We do a bad job.
28:32 - Sure. - Can you share some
28:33 of the things that you've learned going
28:34 from one restaurant to two restaurants?
28:37 - Yeah, but I'll start off by saying,
28:40 listen, I've had a bunch of restaurants in my life,
28:41 and two of them failed miserably.
28:44 One of them I lost hundreds of thousands
28:46 of dollars, personally.
28:50 And I think what's important is when you have mistakes,
28:52 or you make mistakes, especially if you're in a position
28:54 of seniority, or a position of, you know,
28:58 you're at the top, you gotta look in the mirror.
29:01 You gotta own that.
29:02 So important to make sure you own those mistakes.
29:05 Why did this happen?
29:07 And you can blame everybody you want,
29:08 but you have to understand you hired them.
29:10 - Yeah. - You know?
29:11 And you weren't managing them,
29:12 or whatever that was going on.
29:14 So really it's important, I think, to own it,
29:16 and to think about kind of how things happened,
29:18 and that's gonna help you go farther in life,
29:20 I think is really, really, really important.
29:23 For me, we were talking earlier today,
29:24 is, you know, look, I like to say,
29:28 if I didn't own the place, they'd fire me,
29:31 'cause I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
29:33 So I'm continually trying to figure out what to do,
29:35 and how to do this.
29:36 In the beginning, you know, we ran it as a single unit,
29:39 and we're successful.
29:40 When we had two of them, we were successful.
29:42 When we got to our third, we started getting
29:44 into what they call multiple units, and/or chains.
29:46 And nobody wants to be called a chain,
29:48 but sure, by definition, that is what we are.
29:51 And it has to be run a different way.
29:55 You know, you gotta start thinking about SOPs,
29:57 and NMROs, new menu rollouts, and all these things.
30:02 (laughing)
30:04 You know, and how you do it.
30:07 You know, one of the things I loathe about my restaurant,
30:10 is if I wanna change something,
30:12 like my old restaurant, I'd be like,
30:13 I'd walk in on a Thursday morning,
30:15 and I'd be like, okay, we're changing the menu today.
30:17 Here's 10 new dishes, let's go.
30:18 - Today. - Right?
30:19 But no, now, it's like, I wanna change something.
30:21 Like, well, that's gonna take about a month and a half.
30:23 I'm like, ah, I'm gonna kill you.
30:25 But, because these people I work with,
30:28 and Mateus, you know, I love you, he's so awesome.
30:31 You know, he has got a whole strategy
30:33 of how to put a new thing on the menu,
30:34 and it's not that easy.
30:36 So, you know, it's really, how you run multiple units
30:39 is really, really challenging,
30:40 and really, really important you get it right.
30:43 One of the craziest things that happened to me,
30:47 which I didn't realize when I got to three units,
30:49 is they would be like, I could see reviews,
30:50 they'd be like, yeah, don't go to this one,
30:52 go to that one, it's better.
30:54 And I'm like, are you kidding me?
30:55 It's the same freaking recipes.
30:56 Like, I'm like, they're comparing me to me.
30:59 (laughing)
31:01 You know, on Wednesday, Andy's awesome,
31:02 but don't go near him on Thursdays.
31:03 - Yeah. - But it's like,
31:04 I'm like, oh my gosh.
31:05 So, you know, learning to be more consistent,
31:07 learning how to do things better,
31:09 but it's been such a great path,
31:10 such a learning path for me, it's so exciting.
31:15 - Share a little bit about whiskey.
31:17 - You ever think about whiskey?
31:19 You ever think about whiskey and why barbecue and whiskey?
31:23 You ever think about the words that people use for whiskey?
31:25 Hot, charred oak, cinnamon, nutmeg,
31:30 vanilla, smoky.
31:35 These are all the same words we use in barbecue.
31:38 It's kind of fascinating, right?
31:40 And, you know, look, Japanese food,
31:44 sake, made from rice, right?
31:47 French food, French wines.
31:51 There's a reason these things really pair well together.
31:54 And it's a real thing about the history of America
31:56 and how things were done and why they were done
31:59 and why you see commonality in flavors.
32:01 So for me, it's a no-brainer because it pairs so well.
32:07 Barbecue is big and bold.
32:09 If you ever fooled around with trying to use ginger
32:11 or kefir lime or something very nuanced in barbecue,
32:15 smoke just crushes it.
32:17 Unless you're doing chilies and big flavors,
32:19 you know, it's hard to get anything out.
32:22 So you really need something to really stand against it.
32:25 You need a big, bold drink to go with it.
32:28 I mean, beer is great too, and I'm not knocking beer in.
32:30 Wine can be great too, good zen.
32:32 Even champagne can go real well with a rib.
32:34 But I think traditionally and kind of just intuitively,
32:39 whiskey goes really well with barbecue.
32:41 So for me, I've always been passionate about my drinks
32:44 and whiskey is one of the ones I really love.
32:46 And I've always been kind of just learning about it
32:51 and collecting it.
32:52 And so when I opened the first smoke shop,
32:54 I knew I wanted to have a very large list.
32:58 And I think we are Massachusetts largest
33:01 American whiskey collection.
33:03 In fact, I know we are.
33:04 Reach out to me if I'm wrong.
33:06 Please let me know.
33:07 I'm sure you'll let me know.
33:08 But OK, we're Boston.
33:10 Give me Boston at least.
33:12 So you know, and it's great.
33:14 A little bit of the 80/20 theory though.
33:16 We sell 20% of our whiskeys 80% of the time.
33:20 But that's our job is to teach our staff
33:23 and teach our guests why these other whiskeys are great.
33:28 I got no problem with Bullitt and Jack and Beam
33:31 and all the ones that everybody can name.
33:34 But there's some really fun, neat ones out there
33:36 that you might want to check out.
33:38 I don't know.
33:39 So every single week on Wednesday and on Friday
33:43 on LinkedIn, we want you, the listener, you, the viewer,
33:46 to join us.
33:47 Tell us about your restaurant.
33:48 We would love to feature you sometime in one of our shows.
33:51 Digital Hospitality Restaurant Influencers are our new show,
33:54 Family Style for Toast.
33:56 It's a chance for you to connect with the community.
33:58 We believe that your story matters.
34:00 And you've got to get out there and tell it.
34:03 If you don't tell it, we can't know about it.
34:05 Andy, can you tell us anybody in your organization
34:09 that you'd like to give a shout out to?
34:11 Entrepreneur.
34:11 I know you have over 200 people that you employ
34:15 and you take care of.
34:16 And everyone wants to always name the entire org.
34:18 But I need one person.
34:21 I'm scared to give a shout out to--
34:25 listen, everybody knows I love you all.
34:26 Everybody knows.
34:27 But I'll give a shout out to my executive team
34:29 because they've been awesome.
34:30 CJ, she's been with me since my old restaurant.
34:32 She does all our catering and events.
34:34 She's tenacious, if nothing else, man.
34:36 She's awesome.
34:38 Her events are great.
34:39 We do lots of weddings.
34:42 Amy, she's our VP of Ops.
34:44 I couldn't do anything without her.
34:45 She's great, thorough, thoughtful, nice.
34:49 She's such a good person.
34:50 Mattias, director of barbecue ops, Dobo.
34:52 He's great.
34:54 Who am I missing in there?
34:56 My wife, of course.
34:57 She's our marketing--
35:00 she's our chief marketing officer.
35:04 I feel like I'm missing somebody.
35:06 But I think that's it.
35:08 I think I got it.
35:10 What's the best--
35:11 what's your favorite social--
35:12 Oh, I got it.
35:13 Who?
35:14 Angela.
35:14 I didn't forget you.
35:16 There you go, Angela.
35:17 Marketing.
35:18 She's on our executive team also.
35:19 She is killer.
35:21 She's going to be a rock star.
35:23 What's your favorite social platform?
35:25 Where can people connect with you?
35:26 I'm mainly on Instagram.
35:28 I'm going to start dabbling on TikTok eventually.
35:31 I think what's important about any kind of that social media
35:34 stuff is honesty.
35:35 Really, for me, that's--
35:37 so we're always putting stuff up at the smoke shops,
35:39 always put stuff up.
35:40 I put up stuff sometimes, a fair amount.
35:43 But I like it.
35:45 It's interesting.
35:46 I think it's important not to believe the hype sometimes.
35:51 Andy Husbands, the truth speaker.
35:55 I really appreciate you coming on the show,
35:57 sharing your story.
35:58 If you guys want to connect with me,
35:59 it's @SeanPWalchef, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
36:05 Instagram, LinkedIn, any of the platforms.
36:07 We care about you.
36:08 As always, stay curious, get involved,
36:10 and don't be afraid to ask for help.
36:12 I'll catch you guys next week.
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