Interview with San Pedro Fish Market’s Michael Ungaro and Henry Ungaro Jr. about creating the Kings of Fish reality show, going viral, and running a profitable family business.
You know your restaurant has gone viral when it shuts down a California freeway off-ramp.
That’s what happened to the San Pedro Fish Market after popular content creators Foodbeast made a video about their “World Famous Super Tray.”
With a tantalizing mountain of seasoned shrimp, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes, the family meal was destined to be popular. But no one at San Pedro Fish Market knew just how famous it would become until the Foodbeast feature hit social media.
You know your restaurant has gone viral when it shuts down a California freeway off-ramp.
That’s what happened to the San Pedro Fish Market after popular content creators Foodbeast made a video about their “World Famous Super Tray.”
With a tantalizing mountain of seasoned shrimp, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes, the family meal was destined to be popular. But no one at San Pedro Fish Market knew just how famous it would become until the Foodbeast feature hit social media.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Two days later it goes live and it's like instantly get into the millions and millions of views Wow
00:04Port police call me. Hey Mike. Yeah, listen, you know, it's raining. It's March. There's no customers
00:10You're not supposed to be busy right now. Yeah, what?
00:12Well, I had to shut down the off-ramps from the bridge and the 110 because we can't handle the amount of traffic
00:18Welcome to restaurant influencers presented by entrepreneur. I am your host Sean Walsh. F. This is a Cali
00:25BBQ media production in life in the restaurant business and in the new creator economy
00:30We learn through lessons and stories
00:32We are so grateful to toast our primary technology partner at our barbecue restaurants for giving us the opportunity for giving us the stage
00:40We are so grateful to toast our primary technology partner at our barbecue restaurants for giving us the opportunity for giving us the stage
00:46To come here and do really cool stuff like this
00:48So today we are filming this episode in Long Beach at the San Pedro Fish Market
00:55I am here with Mike ungaro Henry ungaro jr
00:59And we are going to talk about kings of fish, which is a show that they launched
01:05We launched this show to teach other restaurants about storytelling and I have a master class of storytellers
01:12You guys have been doing this
01:14You guys have been doing this. When did you launch kings of fish? I think
01:192017
01:202017 I might have been 16. I think it was 2017 was the first 20
01:2417 that is amazing. So welcome to the show. Yeah, great to have beer. Thanks for having us
01:29I'm welcoming you to your own. Yeah, what would my restaurant for your show?
01:34So let's let's set the stage for the audience the viewer the person that's listening on on podcast
01:41Yes, what did we do this morning?
01:43What did we do this morning you what did we just finish doing Wow, we just finished filming for
01:50Was season 2 episode 1 of your show. Yep
01:54Restaurant rebels family style family style restaurant rebels this season. Yes, you guys were the future guests a little blurry
02:00It's been a long day. It's been a long day lots of content
02:04It was fun. Let's a good time. Let's set the stage for for the listener for the viewer Mike. Tell me
02:11Tell me your story my story
02:14Okay. Well, my name is Michael and Garo
02:17Married gonna be 28 years. We have three daughters
02:2224 23 and 20 all growing up and doing their own thing in the world, which is really cool
02:27Unlike them. I worked here most of my life. They danced
02:33Ballerinas and such and have
02:35Turned it into futures for themselves, which is really cool
02:38I
02:41Started working at age 7
02:43My dad asked me if I wanted to come to work with him one summer and I worked like shoveling ice and shoving fish into
02:50bags for the wholesale counts we had at the time through our space in
02:55Wilmington, California with Shamrock Seafoods
02:57I took the I took ages 8 9 and 10 off because I wanted to go out and have fun
03:02I realized I wasted the summer
03:04But I was getting paid $1 an hour is kind of cool
03:07Ice cream man loved me and
03:10Then my mom had like a gallstone surgery when I was 11 12 years old and we were just opening the new San Pedro fish market
03:17That was Good Friday
03:181982 so my brother John and I had to start going to work with him and my brother's Henry
03:23Andrew juniors dad and our sister Jennifer a little bit younger. They stayed with the grandparents during that time. So
03:30You know was a dirty job
03:32We were getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning at age 11 and 12 to go into a fish market
03:36We used to do a lot of smoked seafood
03:38So our Wilmington location is where we smoked it and we had accounts all over the place
03:43But we had a lot of customers that were buying it out of our San Pedro location
03:47So my job was setting up the smoked fish display
03:50Then going in and getting our dining room, which was a new endeavor for us
03:53We hadn't had a restaurant before this and my aunt my dad's sister ran that
03:57so she would have my brother and I go in and wipe down the tables and make sure like all the little
04:02Whatever was in the creases cleaned out with a toothpick from the the the booths, you know set up all the
04:11Tables with a fork and knife and napkin and set the entire restaurant up to open which would be like later in the in the morning
04:17And then we just scaled fish all day until dad said it was time to go home. Wow
04:22So I did that and then when I graduated high school
04:25I had was a pretty good student most of my friends
04:29I had some friends that worked with us, but most of my friends didn't work inside of the fish market
04:34They're actually in neighboring areas like Redondo Beach Torrance or most of each
04:38They're all going to college, you know, so my dad's like, well, please follow in their footsteps
04:42And by the way, you're graduating high school you worked since you were, you know, 11 not counting h7
04:49Take some of that money you saved up and enjoy the summer because you're gonna go to school
04:52I'm gonna work the rest of your life. You'll never have free time again. Yeah, so that whole summer
04:56I took off and hung out with my friends and I decided not to go back
04:59And what I did was I went and I worked a bunch of different jobs
05:02I worked in a yogurt store video rental store for those of you don't know
05:05That's how we used to get entertainment in the 80s. You didn't have Netflix back then. No
05:10It was a video rental combination frozen yogurt store. Ah
05:15Nice did that? Yeah, I did that and then I had a
05:19Couple actually, you know that I think one of the life changers for me actually forgot about this
05:23One of my family members is like, you know
05:25There's a grocery store called Hughes markets and they're opening in their seafood department
05:29And it's a union job and I was in school
05:31I was in like my first year of a community colleges. I'm like, why am I going to college?
05:35Like I I don't want to go learn any more English. I don't want to learn math
05:38I don't know why I'm going to school
05:39so I I took this job working in this the meat section the seafood section of this grocery store chain and
05:48The people I worked with were really not happy. So I was kind of scared if I quit college, I might not go back
05:53So I'm gonna take geology and geography
05:55Which are essentially the same in my mind keep keep my foot in school, but try this full-time job thing
06:01Yeah
06:02and I worked in the seafood department realizing I really didn't know as much about seafood as I thought I did or as they
06:06thought I did and then
06:09The people weren't happy, you know
06:10They were complaining about their wives and their lives and they just go home and drink and come home back to work and I was
06:15Like man, this is miserable. Like I don't want this future. And then the interesting part was they left me alone a good Friday
06:21And I didn't know what I was doing and I'd never seen this before or since but they had frozen shrimp in a can
06:29So these people come and I need shrimp, you know, it's good Friday
06:31And I couldn't get the shrimp back because it was frozen. So I tried to reach out with my hand and I sliced
06:37the little skin here
06:40So they
06:41They sent me home and I and I didn't do nothing about workers comp
06:46You know, they didn't have me sign a release of course not so I went to get my dad's like it's stitches
06:51So I went to get stitches and it was this whole thing and they were like you could have sued us
06:55We have to sign here. I'm like, I have no idea we're talking about but I don't know why I'm here
06:58Yeah friend of mine calls me one of my oldest friends and I hadn't seen him for a while
07:01So we kind of split up in high school different high schools and I ran into him because hey you want a job at a
07:06Bank, I work at a bank. No doing what because well, I got my my buddy and my neighbor a job there
07:11But you know, he killed his girlfriend. So he's in jail now. So there's this opening
07:15I'm like, okay, that sounds terrible. He goes, but I think I can get you the job
07:18So I walked in there with the stitches
07:20Yeah, right all bandaged up and there is my grandfather in the lobby of the bank with his best friend Freddie
07:26Well, we call them Freddie the hat, but I found out later. His name was really Freddie the leg-breaker
07:30I didn't realize my grandfather was a bookie at this time. And so they met every day for lunch in this bank. I
07:37Don't know why and then they would go out and I think I think Freddie had you know
07:41He had accounts there and then he was probably a loan shark and money. I really don't know dude, but I they're like
07:47Why are you dressed in a tie and a sweater? What's wrong with you?
07:50Why don't you have the fish market working God? I know I want to try something different. They walked me over to the
07:55Bank teller. Yeah, I'm sorry the bank manager and she looks at me and she looks at them and she goes I guess you're I guess
08:02You're hired
08:03Really? What happened to your last boss? Why so what's with the stitches? Yeah
08:07Just
08:09So I got the job and it was like at the time so it's like 1989 maybe
08:15The minimum amount of time you could work was so they paid $10 an hour
08:20Basically for less than 20 hours a week
08:22You know at the time, you know
08:24It was a lot and so I ended up doing that and I went back to a college
08:28When I went back actually got into USC and I graduated USC there and then I worked in banking
08:32I worked in insurance and I ultimately came back here. It's amazing
08:36few failures in between that but that those failures actually gave me knowledge that I was able to come back into the business and
08:42Help lead us into a different direction which made all the difference in the world
08:45Give us an idea of size and scope of where you guys are now in
08:492024 as far as how many employees do you have how many locations right now? We have three locations
08:55One of them is a temporary location. There's a total of 240 employees, but a year ago we had 400 Wow
09:01Yeah, we had 400 before that and in our peak at the end of 2022
09:05We produced a little over 30 million dollars in gross sales
09:09I think and our main location has served almost 2 million customers since saying it was 50 for those locations in San Pedro
09:16We're on 55,000 square feet with 3,000 seats. And then we have the one we're in here today, which is in Long Beach smaller
09:21I think it's 480
09:23We have another one in Wilmington
09:24It's you know, it's got about 200 to 500 depending on how you program it and it's also our
09:29Commissary storage and that's also a 55,000 square foot piece of land
09:32but it's a small small portion of it as a restaurant supposed to storage and then
09:37We had to grill concepts that we were testing out which were kind of a fast casual concept
09:42But what we did here
09:43But it just didn't really work out and then Kobe'd happened right after we opened them
09:47So we just couldn't dig out of that
09:49But what we noticed and what we realized is people are going in there and they want to spend less than $10
09:54And to do that we'd have to cut the quality on the seafood
09:56And we just couldn't see how to stay on brand to do that. So we ultimately let those go. So I'd love to set the stage
10:04Henry you and I met
10:06in
10:072022 yeah, and I found that out actually this morning when I was before we started filming for family style
10:13Yeah, I saw your dad and I was talking to your dad and he was like, yeah, I know you like well
10:19Yeah, obviously, you know, we were on a pre-show call. It's like no I know you from before
10:23I'm like, what are you talking about? Tell us tell us how you how you ran into a guy like me my dad and I
10:30like to go to all the restaurant conferences and just go see them as often as we can and I was
10:35Sitting in a in a class that talked about tech stacks and because that's my role
10:41I do IT for the San Pedro fish market
10:43So we were just I was listening to that class because I wanted to learn more
10:47I'm just finally getting into this and you happen to be there and you were the teacher and
10:52You actually called me out and I was very nervous really in front of all those people. Yeah
10:57What did I call you out for? I think you were just telling what yeah
11:01Well, what what I did and who we were and at that time were you on toast?
11:07I was talking to toast, but no I was not on you were talking to toast fascinating
11:12Yeah, so tell us tell us your toast story your toast unboxing story. So
11:17We had six locations all six of them used a different POS or there was five different POS within the six locations, so
11:27Anytime you needed anything you had to go through every single one a different way try to figure it out and get it to work
11:32And I everybody was just tired of it
11:35Nobody wanted to use any of the POS because they all had their own little quirks that nobody liked
11:40So I spent about six months just researching all the different POS
11:47and having demos and meeting with all the different companies to try to figure out what would be the best fit for us and
11:53I
11:55Ended up I think it was at that show. You were kind of the final like push other than visiting it. Did you hear that toast?
12:01Yeah, it was all Sean. There you go. Yeah
12:05you convinced me to kind of because we already had some of the other partners you were working with like ovation and
12:12What are some of the other ones you were seven shifts restaurant 365
12:16365 yeah. Yeah a lot of those and so I was excited on how they could all integrate together and
12:23Then I spent the next year and a half
12:26Slowly rolling it out. We actually did it here first in Long Beach and we had a big old training with everybody
12:31They were all nervous. They all hated me at first because they didn't want a new system
12:35But here we are you're a year later and it's it's going really smooth
12:41Tell me about online ordering
12:44online ordering
12:47Once
12:48Kovat hit we realized we needed to meet the customers somewhere else because they could be in quarantine or wherever we didn't have
12:56Room for them to come sit and eat with us. So we signed up for all the third parties grubhub door dash
13:02uber eats
13:04Postmates at the time all of them and
13:06It worked pretty great
13:08We were selling our $20 shrimp tray and that was a steal for everybody. So we were doing pretty good in the beginning
13:16Once we opened up our doors again, and it was starting to get busy. We realized that
13:21guests were
13:22Avoiding the line by ordering on door dash, then they would come in the restaurant to pick up their food and then steal a table
13:31Yeah, so
13:33We ended up shutting it down on the weekends most time when it was busy, but now we use toast online ordering that integrates with
13:40All of them so we don't have to actually
13:42Make changes on five different platforms, which is really nice. We used Olo originally. Yep
13:48Yeah, but once we switch to toast we had some issues with Olo over the years, but
13:54But I like toast online ordering a lot. Nice. Yeah, so Mike we created a show with entrepreneur with toast as their sponsor
14:02We teach anyone that listens anyone that watches how important it is to tell your own story
14:07Yeah, you know that's the heart of
14:10Who we are Cali barbecue is that no one came to tell our story and I was waiting
14:14I was like if we do phenomenal barbecue
14:16Yeah, if we take care of the community if we you know do this great job
14:21Building a business if you build it they will come I was waiting for you know field of dreams Kevin Costner
14:27Yeah, it's full of shit
14:28He's not coming
14:30He's not coming
14:32Tell me about you owning your story. Tell me about Kings of right so we were doing really well in our San Pedro location
14:40We had record crowds and customers and things were fine. It wasn't like there was something to fix, you know
14:46But what I did start to notice was there was this narrative that the area wasn't safe that it needed to be redeveloped
14:53that and it was like
14:56We were almost the cause of it and some people's story, you know
15:00like our customer base was too big and
15:03Too blue-collar and whatever the story was
15:06You know people were making these stories up and you would see it and start to see it in places that were new like you
15:10Open social media, right? Yeah, you had Facebook and mostly it's Facebook and Yelp that I was noticing in it and I was like, okay
15:15Well, these aren't even accurate, you know, like how do we get a control that so one at one point?
15:21There was a new story stating, you know that the area's not safe
15:25It's gangs and violence and drugs and blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, these are all families. What are you talking about?
15:30So I took and took the link to the new story and I shared it on our Facebook page
15:36Which at the time was like just a few thousand people and people from all over the country were commenting
15:41I like I fly in there for all my holidays and that's where we do our families. I'm like, that's totally ridiculous
15:46I'm like, okay. I've got to find a way to tell the story
15:47So first we just used Facebook weren't even really using anything with Instagram at the time
15:52We had a commercial filmed with a professional production company. We hired that told our stories a history video
15:59I think it's still on San Pedro fish calm under history and
16:04It was really a valuable tool for us in negotiating to be part of the project
16:09Yeah, but what I started to realize you we had this this other thing I hadn't mentioned to you
16:13I don't think I mentioned this to you, but when we had our frozen line
16:16HEB in Texas was interested really right?
16:19So in between that we had this Lobster Festival or we said three Guinness World Records in a single day
16:24And a couple years you did that lobster. We did a thing for 20 years
16:28We did one for 10 years
16:35The 19th or 20th, I'm like we got it
16:38It's too much work and
16:42We
16:44Lost my track I thought I was I talking about so as we were doing the we were doing this Lobster Fest these guys that
16:49We did a TV show and it was actually called the hungry channel
16:52And it was the guy that started the food network brought it to YouTube
16:56And so I had all these cool content and we filmed one of the shows called drink ink
17:00You can still find it Henry and I are on there and they invented drinks for us
17:03Okay, you know and they came to us and they said really cool guys Jonah and Jonas still keep in contact with them a little
17:09Bit they said we we think you guys might have something, you know
17:13You know, and I think what they were thinking was you look like Duck Dynasty with fish
17:16You're gonna do these three Guinness World Records in a day
17:18Can we film it and see what your family's like in front of the camera? Of course, they were naturals, right?
17:22Yeah, so they created a sizzle reel and they kind of shopped it all over the place
17:25But no one would buy it and I think I think part of the problem is it's right when Duck Dynasty kind of hit some
17:29Bad press and it looked too much like that
17:31So I want to touch it, but they gave us a sizzle reel cool. So like I can do whatever I want with this
17:36I don't want to do much but but I'm going to meet with HGB
17:39They want to buy our frozen meal product we had at the time
17:41So I go this would be a great way to introduce into who we are because it was a really cool sizzle room
17:45I mean, we still have it actually I think might even be on our website. So HGB sees it and they're like that's a dynasty
17:50Well, how about the product right now and I go? No, it's just marketing. There's there's no other episodes. There's nothing else here
17:56Yeah, yeah
17:57Yeah, but what channels are gonna be on because it looked so real that they didn't it didn't occur
18:02So they place this big order for product and I had no other content Wow
18:06So Henry and I are sitting there going no one's gonna buy this stuff because I don't have I don't have anything else that we
18:10Can use to market it and I was trying everything I could think of with
18:13Geotagging and stuff in Facebook that you had to do at the time
18:15But it wasn't enough to do the volume for what they wanted to buy
18:18But we started thinking can't we just make this ourselves?
18:21So we talked to these guys it was a little bit out of our price range here
18:24They were doing full-on TV shows, you know, there's like million-dollar budget minimum
18:28It's like well, we can't do that and we didn't know how to get sponsors at the time
18:31So and we still don't to be honest with you. We're working on that. I'll see that Modelo
18:35Give me a give me a Modelo story Modelo. We sell the only I think the only place in
18:41California that sells more Modelo and that's his Angel Stadium. That's insane. That is absolutely used to be
18:47With for a long time. It was Budweiser. It was it was us
18:50It was I think it was Dodger Stadium LAX and us for Budweiser, but then we diversified and sold a lot more beers
18:55It's micheladas, or is it just a yellow beer straight all of it. Yeah, whether it's a water. Yeah, just move. We don't care
19:02It was a converted freeze walk-in freezer with it could also get fit a forklift in with hundreds of kids Wow
19:08So so anyways, we we decided let's try to make the product on our own and and we created Kings of Fish with a different
19:15Company we teamed up with them and we made four episodes that were like basically 45 minutes each the first season
19:20Yeah, we're Tommy's quitting. I think right it's in there. Tommy quits the first season and the first season breaking news
19:25We film family style and we film family style and we film family style
19:29Breaking news. We film family style today. Tommy's in the episode. So yeah, I get thrown off in season one
19:36The king is not retired. He's never retired
19:40And so like we we film this and we go this is really cool. We like we own it
19:44What are we gonna do with it? Well, we really didn't know how to make YouTube work
19:47Yeah, every time we try it and we've never had success as you do but we but our Facebook page was growing
19:52Yeah, and they're right before we were gonna put it out Instagram lists or temp top 10 most Instagram restaurants in the country
19:57Yeah, we're number five Wow without trying Wow, because we don't it was all geotag those customers and for three years
20:04We're in either five or seven Wow, so we're like, okay
20:07Well, we'll put it on Instagram and we'll put it on Facebook and our sales
20:11I think that one month that jumped up like a million dollars in gross sales above what they normally would have been
20:15It's like well, this is working and then we had a conversation with a company called food beast
20:21And they were their content creator company and they they were creating their own series and they wanted to put us on their website
20:26Fine we did that and return for their eyeballs because I thought it would help with sponsorships to do that, you know
20:31So they're like, well, we're I think we're taking advantage of you. So we're gonna come down. We'll do like a video thing and live
20:38Twitter Twitter and there wasn't tick-tock at the time, but it's Twitter Instagram Facebook. I don't know what else what other platform
20:44Maybe a vine or something. Yeah
20:48So they had all this stuff going on and I'm like I'm looking at these guys like
20:51These guys look like just rolled out of bed, you know, like I'm I mean, I'm dressing my fish market stuff
20:56Yeah, this isn't a professional company. I thought but they were kids. Yeah, I mean
21:00Relative to me, but they knew what they were doing
21:03Yeah, and they're then so they're in the fish market the old fish market before I got torn down
21:06they're like, what do you have like that's special like something with a lot of cheese and
21:10as a
21:11Eli who's who's our good friends? All right, I'm like no we do seafood, dude
21:15And he's looking around and he sees this obscure menu board
21:18That's off in the corner because we started like building many kitchens to keep up with the man
21:22So we'd have some griddles over here and some griddles over there and then like, you know
21:26One of the vendors would make a menu board and on this menu board really small from the courts
21:31It's super tray and he goes what's a super tray? I have no idea
21:34I'll make one though and it'll be super so I went and I got a bunch of seafood and you guys could search it
21:38You can if you search San Pedro fish market super tray and food beast, you'll find this
21:43We're gonna put a link in the show notes. Yeah, you'll find it for sure
21:45And so they made this video on we're both talking and we're doing stuff and I don't know what's gonna happen, right?
21:51Two days later it goes live and it's like instantly get into the millions and millions of views Wow across their their platforms
21:58Now I'm out of town because I'm looking at colleges with my daughter
22:01Court police call me for Los Angeles Police Department. They're trying to call you. We know them. So they call me. Hey Mike
22:06Yeah, listen, you know, it's raining. It's March. There's no customers. You're not supposed to be busy right now
22:12Yeah, what well I had to shut down the off-ramps from the bridge and the 110 because we can't handle the amount of traffic coming
22:18In your business. What are you doing? I'm not doing anything. No way the video Wow video went so viral
22:23it brought 30,000 customers in in 10 days from all over the country and
22:27Outside of the country were calling from London from South America from Kansas from Florida
22:32I mean, I'm coming in for the super tray and they're flying to have it
22:35It was insane and and then I you know
22:37I'm watching this and I realized months and months and months and months and months pass and
22:41It's people are still coming in asking for the super tray, but nobody knows how to make one still
22:47I'm like, how do you guys not know how to make these things?
22:49Like so I had to get him a board that said super tray Kings tray
22:53We made all these things up and we integrated in with the kings of fish story line
22:56So people understood and then they're like, yeah, I just want that
22:59They're like wandering around and they can't find a little obscure super tray sign and no one that works for us knew what it was
23:04Or how to make it
23:06It's like we've told a missed opportunity, but we were still doing really well our sales went up
23:10So between we just started to realize telling our story using these social media platforms
23:15and
23:17Understanding why people were visiting us
23:19They're visiting us with families or business for the experience and the more that we could push that narrative out the more powerful
23:24Our brand became I think one of the things that I love about the kings of fish series is that it humanizes?
23:32The family business, yeah, you know, I got to see the relationship with you and your brother you and your dad
23:38I got to see the sister your sister and
23:43obviously Tommy's a star of the show for sure, but
23:46Understanding like why we do what we do. Like why do we put on this show?
23:50Why do we partner with entrepreneur like why why do I go talk about smartphone storytelling?
23:55It's like the media you don't need to build a media company
23:58You need to start documenting the stuff that's already happening in your business. And once you do that, it doesn't matter if
24:05You get all kinds of new business
24:08Eventually, it will lead to something cool without a doubt
24:12Like without a doubt it will lead to something cool
24:14Like I know if not one other person came in to San Pedro fish market the fact that you and your dad
24:21Got to share a moment when you were young
24:23About like where you wanted to go about you going to college like that's on film
24:29How does that feel to you? It's pretty awesome to look back. We play them sometimes in the restaurants
24:34Yeah, I'll be walking around people are like, is that you it looks so different and young
24:39Yeah, but it's awesome. Just were you pranking your aunt in one of the episodes?
24:45Yeah
24:48That glove was nasty that was the wettest nastiest fishiest glove I've ever seen and she put it on yeah, yeah, but
24:57When that first sizzle reel came out, I was in middle school. Really? Yeah, I remember being so excited
25:03I was showing it to all my friends. Everybody's going crazy like oh my god, you're gonna be famous and
25:08We're not that famous
25:10We know some people but
25:13It's just awesome to see it all and go back and it's all like you said
25:17Documented history of how the family's run and the business and everything and where it's come
25:22It's just really awesome. Tell me about the people
25:25Your friends specifically your age group and they saw the stuff as you have friends that are in business that saw what you're doing
25:33And go what like even your eat like even your brother in the episodes is like giving you shit like oh
25:39You're mr. Computer. Yeah. Yeah, what are you just on your phone the same?
25:43Yeah, it resonated really well with me because you know in my my business my business partner Eric
25:49He's always like, you know, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm on the Internet
25:53Playing on the computer. I'm playing on the computer. This is not a trust me. We're doing business. No, it's not a game
25:58But it was the same thing we've talked about with the older school kind of like traditional restaurants are paying still pen and paper
26:05Yep, they don't understand the power of having the access to information and technology and talking to people, you know
26:11Like there were assumptions get made. I talked to a customer. So everyone must be this way
26:15Yeah, we can ask we can actually do a poll and then you're like, well I was way off
26:20That is not what people are looking for. I think one of the things that I was gonna mention to you
26:26People connect with those stories like you did yeah like a couple weeks ago this couple came in
26:32Somewhere like on the north eastern side of the country on the Canadian border was Maine
26:37I guess they came in and booked a cruise out of San Pedro's only because they wanted to they saw Kings of Fish and one
26:42Wow, they saw Tommy
26:45Talked to him. He took care of him and they put him in his car and gave him a tour around Pedro
26:49Which is dangerous, but I don't recommend
26:51Give the tour all over town all the history of the city and the fishing history and stuff and like who gets an experience like
26:57That you know correct and you get you get a lot of that
26:59Like there was a guy that Daniel who I think we met today Daniels. Yep, you know, he's that always amazing
27:04He was filming somebody that came in from the United Kingdom a couple days ago
27:08And he had like an incredible Hulk shirt on and he was talking about I I saw you on it
27:12It wasn't art. I don't know that he saw Kings of Fish you saw
27:15Mark wines
27:16I think it was like his his YouTube page was had they came down and did a full thing on their own and had like
27:21Millions of followers that are millions of views to it. So this stuff is like it
27:26It snowballs right it cascades into places you don't expect but you could take advantage of it as far as my friends
27:33Occasionally, they're in the show. But for the most part, they're just like, you know, okay, mr. Famous, whatever, you know
27:38It's basically just giving you a hard time all ball busting and like my group of friends have a whole text thread. That's just
27:44It takes intestinal fortitude even read the text
27:49But on the business side
27:51I have a lot of friends in business that looked at what we were doing and saw the saw the potential saw the brand
27:56Building. Yeah, you're building a brand
27:58this isn't a restaurant anymore and you're telling stories and we were studying like the
28:03form of what a story is like the elements of the exposition and conflict resolution rising action denim was I I
28:09Understood how we could utilize all that in business. Yeah, and these guys saw it and been really helpful
28:15You know guys and gals are just like my network. They really need the help. You can't do it on your own effectively
28:19You need all the help you can get
28:21Henry you talked about
28:23trade shows
28:25Continuing education one of the pillars that we believe in in this show is stay curious get involved ask for help
28:31I think one of the hardest lessons that I've learned that I still struggle with is asking for help
28:37But like going to trade shows and seeing I mean
28:40That's why we love doing this content because whoever listens to this
28:43Chances are they might be running a better restaurant than what we do
28:46They run a better media business than we do and just because we're all on the same wavelength. It's like oh cool
28:51Let's share notes. Like let's figure out. How do you do it? Or how are you implementing that technology?
28:56Tell me a little bit about your process
28:59I still have a hard time asking for help. I'd say yeah, just
29:03Because I'm the only one in the company who is really involved in the tech and yeah
29:08Took the time to actually learn it and take it to the next level
29:12But like you said, I enjoy going to all those shows and because everybody there obviously knows more than me
29:19So I like to sit in all those classes I watch as many videos as I can online
29:25YouTube University is always a good place to go learn some stuff
29:32Whenever
29:35Now I have a guy under me and
29:38So I really enjoy teaching him everything and he he comes to me for help a lot
29:42Which is nice because he was the same way. He didn't want to ask for help
29:45He wanted to just try to figure it out. So I said no just come to me whenever you want
29:49I probably have the answer already or if I don't I'm gonna ask somebody else at one of these companies that does so
29:55It's just and I know you've always been pushing on education forever and ever and ever and we've done
30:01Aussie classes and Macklin and now EOS and everything and it's it's the best way to keep moving forward
30:09When did you realize that the San Pedro brand?
30:13Was bigger than Long Beach
30:16I mean bigger than San Pedro or bigger than the city. We're in bigger than
30:20So, yeah, I got you. So I just want to make sure
30:23So when did I realize it's bigger than the extra our hometown
30:27Was when we I think the social media thing is when it showed up
30:30Actually, there was there's before that
30:31I'll take that back all of us have a story of traveling somewhere far away and seeing a fish market shirt
30:37Seen a fish market. Yeah, I mean Tommy has been all over the world
30:40He's been to Europe and people are San Pedro fish market. That's cool. I was I
30:45Have traveled to Europe and after college same thing
30:48I went down to Mexico to visit with a couple of our employees to see where they were from and go fishing and stuff fish
30:53Market, yeah, it's just it's insane
30:55Or if you're wearing it people recognizing it come up to you go or you work at the fish markets
30:59That's still there in San Pedro. My wife works part-time at a new crate and barrel outlet store by our house
31:04You know slide gig for I think she had her shirt on or like do you know that place?
31:10Yeah, you know there's one in Long Beach this right down the street no, I didn't know we had another one a Long Beach
31:15I thought San Pedro was closed. So she's marketing for us that great Merrill
31:20Couches and shrimp trays, but it's beyond Southern, California
31:23I mean now you have other now you have other port districts that have heard your story
31:28Yeah, not only have they heard your story, but then when you bring the business side to it
31:32Yeah, you're like, oh actually by the way, you know and to your point
31:35You said that you go to the trade shows and they all know more than you
31:38I would argue that the more that you go and the more that you speak up the more that you teach the tech companies
31:44Because as much as they know about tech, they don't know how to run a restaurant like this
31:48They don't know how to run a fish market the way that you guys do
31:50They don't know how to serve 3,000 people
31:52So like the more that you can educate them the better the technology that they can build
31:57That's great. I think also
32:00You know as we were telling stories and building the brand
32:03Yeah, so so we realized we have fans kind of scattered around because it's been six decades
32:07Yep
32:08but as we started like telling the story more and we had
32:11Ways to track it and see like through our credit card data through social media data
32:15We could see like we had a hundred mile radius before it dropped off then we kind of zoomed out
32:20And you have these big clusters in Las Vegas and Phoenix and San Diego and Bakersfield and all of the Bay Area
32:27You know that or as you start to talk to these people you rise more a day trip for them
32:32It's like a 10 hour round trip, but just to have our food and go back
32:35So I think the brands growing we're seeing this happen and then um, what do you think people see this date wise date wise?
32:43Whenever we want when you own your own media, you got it. We can publish when we want
32:48I'll be careful with what I'm gonna say next
32:50We have been in a conversation public conversation for a long time with the city of Monterey for a location on their wharf
32:55This is breaking news. So whenever this is available, this will be public
33:00May 7th is a City Council meeting whether they'll agree to terms that we have agreed to with them
33:04But amazing there's a very good chance
33:06They're going to agree to all these terms and we're gonna have a new location there and I think what's really significant about that huge
33:11It's it's six to seven hours away
33:14Our goal is really to stay within two hours, but the city of Monterey was so
33:21Enthusiastic to have our brand on their war which is a historic work. It's been around a long time
33:26I went to talk to the City Council there
33:29About a year and a half ago and they're like, you know, we want you to understand how important our wharf is
33:34We don't want to change
33:35Like I listen I grew up in an area that everything just got torn down
33:38It's being rebuilt and I walked on your wharf and it was like going back to my childhood
33:41It felt like I was back in San Pedro back in the 80s and even 90s. I would never do anything to change that
33:47I know it sucks. I mean, I understand sometimes it has to happen, but I would never be the catalyst to it
33:52Yeah, and so
33:53You know partly because of that and a few other things we talked about they called us that night and awarded the bid to us
33:59Wow
34:00We've been working out terms in them for a long time
34:02And I think we finally I know I signed my side of the term sheet
34:05Yeah a couple days ago, so I don't think we I think I think we'll be fine, but we won't know till May 7th
34:10That's incredible worst-case they counter and we won't go back to the table
34:13But at some point I think we'll be a San Pedro fish market in Monterey wharf
34:16Monterey wharf you heard it here on entrepreneur on restaurant influencers. That is a huge huge deal. Yeah
34:22It's exciting who's gonna go up there and run it. We don't know yet
34:27We have identified a few people but we'll see
34:30What I've got to build it
34:32Correct. What advice would you have to the restaurant tour the hospitality professional?
34:38that's listening to this show when it comes to
34:43Not only the family business, but more specifically the storytelling business. I
34:50One thing that I have learned
34:52Any part of your story that you leave blank?
34:55People will fill it in with what they think the story is and it will almost always be negative
35:00It'll always be worst-case scenario. I'll give you an example. We had the in-and-out truck come down for an employee event
35:06yeah, right, this is before the eviction and
35:10The things are still a little tight because we're coming out of Kovac
35:13And there's a lot of rumors and stories going around about our future
35:16So, you know what it's time for an employee event and we'll all ownership will all address and answer questions
35:20We'll bring the in-and-out truck. That's awesome. People thought they were getting fired
35:24They had made up this story that we were feeding them as a final supper
35:28And now and I wasn't mad about it, but I hand over your dad was a little bit of something
35:32What the hell, you know, you know, let's mention this truck
35:35But you know as a chance to talk and go listen, we have an open-door policy
35:39You don't have to make up stories and rumors. You could reach out to any of us. I got an email
35:42I got an address. I got an office
35:44Text me call me whatever it is, you know, there's no reason to assume the worst
35:48Our core values family passion and leadership family. It's a big one huge
35:53Yeah, and so as we had to go through that's why I've you know, we keep thing
35:56It's family the right core value and I go, I don't know how it's not, you know, it's so important to who we are. So
36:03That answer a question
36:06You got to control your story because even internally and externally now on the external side
36:11There is all kinds of stories even to this day that I'm just finding out about that
36:15We are difficult to deal with
36:17That we do all these things and I don't know who made these stories up like we've had the same vendors forever
36:22We fight them off with the stick, but we take care of them all
36:24Yeah, you know when we built this place we dealt with a lot of problems, but we made friends with everybody. You got it done
36:31But if you're not in there telling that story, it's easy to become the scapegoat because of your size
36:36They were you watch, um Yellowstone. I don't but I'm so there's a there's a scene with we're going back to Kevin
36:42I'm gonna save Kevin Costner save him save him because I
36:45Earlier, I throw him under the bus all the time
36:48Here's a line in Yellowstone where he says anytime and I'm paraphrasing it's anytime you have something good
36:53Everybody will be fighting to take it away from you
36:55And I listen to that because I my wife and I really into it during that Kovac
36:59And I'm watch it's going you know what that feel like that's happening to us all the time every time we make some sort of
37:03Success we're battling to keep what we built. Yeah, you know, I didn't think about it that way
37:09Cuz I don't like to think of people as enemies. Yeah, so the way I do is we use the storytelling to create alliances
37:14Yeah, like we went all through town and said hey, I love your restaurant. Can we put you in Kings of Fish?
37:18They charge him for it. Of course. It's like we just want to promote the local business
37:21We went to the brewery went to a Dustin trainees place, which is a kind of a distant relative great restaurant
37:27We went on the USS
37:28Iowa did a whole bunch of stuff went out through all to see which is the one where Tommy jr.
37:32You know God rest in peace is boat sinking. I saw that one. No, I don't think there's one episode of Kings of Fish
37:38Well, we went out to a place called the Cattley in the sea ranch
37:41I don't think it's there anymore, but they were harvesting black mussels. Okay
37:45To sell and we were a customer testing it out through one of our distributors. Okay, so that'd be a cool thing
37:49We'll go out through all to see which is a marine research facility on their boat to go to the Catalina Sea Ranch
37:54And this literally happened this wasn't staged the guy was so distracted with the cameras
37:59He was moving the boat around and he didn't realize that the little dinghy boat thing that we brought wasn't a dinghy
38:04But the boat we got out there. It's the weight came over and it starts sinking
38:07Well, Tommy jr. My brother and they're trying to grab all their tackle and stuff
38:12Yeah, it was scary, but they got down there and bailed all the water out and saved the boat. That's crazy
38:17That is crazy
38:18So we were doing these things
38:20to help promote our neighbors in our community with the audience that we had because we wanted people to know like we're good members of
38:27The community and we want to be in alliances with everybody else. We're not looking to be adversaries. It's not what we do
38:33It's not how we've been to successful
38:34Actually what a lot of people call us is the seafood diplomats seafood along with everybody. There you go politicians
38:40I can you support my campaign? Yeah, but I'm gonna support all of you equally because you're all my friends. Yeah, you're all hungry
38:45We take a side we lose half the customers
38:47We can't be in a political game in this this way in the way some other businesses can do it
38:51It's too risky for us Henry. What is digital hospitality mean to you digital hospitality?
38:58means making the
39:01Experience as easy and seamless as possible for the guests online
39:05so whether that's ordering at the table at our landing location or
39:10Just going through our website
39:13That way no matter what you can just get what you need without spending too much time
39:17Because you know everybody after three or so clicks they're done. Yeah, I don't want to spend any more time on the website. So
39:23The faster you make it the more likely you are to convert. That's awesome
39:28So every single week on LinkedIn if you the listener you the viewer
39:33We want you to come and share your story. You can reach out to me at Sean P. Walsh F SHA WN P
39:40WAL
39:41CH EF that's a chance for us to learn about you to learn about your story if you're in sales
39:46Marketing or a content creator. We want to hear from you
39:49We also do a social shout out on this show this week's social shout out goes to Steven Ranao
39:55So Steven puts together leadership lunches if you are a restaurant owner in Southern, California
40:01Let me know I'll get you in touch with Steven
40:03But you have to kind of get jumped into this leadership lunch. The first one that I ever attended was here. That's right here
40:09That's where I learned about Mike. Well, I knew about Mike because of Henry and Henry jr
40:15I heard about San Pedro, but the second touch point was me coming to lunch here at Stevens
40:21Leadership lunch
40:22You shared your story and we joked that
40:26We're gonna figure out a way to do a toast family style episode and we're gonna go on your roof
40:31And we're gonna do the intro to the episode and not only did that joke come true, but it happened today
40:37So here we are filming not only family style, but also restaurant influencers
40:41Anything can happen if you put it out into the universe six weeks ago. I think six weeks ago. That was a fast turnaround
40:48I'll tell you something else
40:49I was sharing your information with some of my business friends because I have a social
40:53We call it social capital call. Like how do you capitalize on your social? Okay identity. I like it's a group of small group
40:59I'm like look what this guy's doing. I think I've been trying to do this
41:03Because I gotta I gotta talk to this guy and I and I realized oh shit. I'm actually spending the day with them
41:08I'm spending the day with this guy. I'm sending him a text. I go guess who I'm spending the day with today
41:12Not just hanging out by the way. Yeah. No, we're filming content all day
41:16No, we we can't wait for Kings of Fish tell tell the audience where they're gonna be able to watch this Kings of Fish is
41:23Gonna be streaming on Amazon Prime. We will we have all the trailers done
41:27So we're gonna be pushing those out through our social media channels very soon. That is amazing Amazon Prime
41:33So if you're a restaurant, look at that
41:35We have a case study not only is the Cali barbecue media, but more importantly Kings of Fish is on Amazon Prime
41:41This is phenomenal exciting
41:42This is phenomenal and we're gonna work on if you guys are listening to this and you're a brand and you want you want in
41:47I know a guy I know a guy and we we we can create some awesome content together before I let you guys go
41:54I'm gonna get a couple quick questions about your smartphone storytelling. So I need to know are you an iPhone or an Android iPhone?
42:00What which version? Oh, I think I'm mine's two years old. So is that 13? Okay
42:06Do you prefer phone calls or texts?
42:08Prefer
42:10Depends on the situation mostly text because I can do a lot more done
42:14I don't have a problem with phone calls, but and I'm on them all the freaking time. Do you leave voicemails? I do
42:20Yeah, I hate when people don't leave a voicemail. Do you like it?
42:23What do you like it when people leave you a voicemail? Yeah, I want to know why you called me
42:27How many emails do you get a day? Oh, that's in the hundreds right now. How many do you enjoy reading?
42:32I have my daughter sort through them all for me as my assistant and then read the ones that I need to
42:39Do you use Apple Maps or Google Maps or ways I use ways ways every day really every day?
42:45Okay, how do you listen to music on your phone? Yeah, what?
42:48You know, I've been mostly listening to Spotify recently because I have a sync there with my Peloton
42:54But I also have Apple and Pandora so it's kind of I'd say it's Pandora. Hello
43:00Pandora Spotify Apple music in that order and why why don't I just have one it's you got to pick one
43:07It's too many platforms, right? It's killing me. Do you prefer photos or videos? Oh
43:13Wow to take on my own or to see
43:17I typically do
43:20Photos, but I keep live mode on so I can manipulate them. Okay. Yeah, and what's your favorite social media platform?
43:28Probably Instagram right now, but I
43:30I've been looking at tick-tock, you know, we have some content there
43:33But Instagram is where I tend to gravitate towards and are you gonna be posting more on LinkedIn a lot more on LinkedIn?
43:39Yeah, LinkedIn is probably gonna be my favorite moving forward. There we go. Now we're talking
43:42We're gonna put a link to your LinkedIn profile Henry. You're up iPhone or Android iPhone and which version 15 15, bro
43:51Do you prefer texts or phone calls?
43:54Texts for the same reason do you get stuck on there? Do you use voice to text?
43:59Sometimes yeah, do you Siri? Yeah, you do I do how often I
44:04Just recently got one of those home pods for my apartment a lot more often now. Okay, do you prefer photos or videos? I
44:12Used to be a photos guy, but lately I've been getting more into videos more into videos
44:17Yeah, just you're taking your own video if you take a picture you're stuck with that one thing
44:21But if you have a video you have a lot more what's your favorite social platform?
44:25Instagram Instagram. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of tick-tock. Do you post personally on Instagram?
44:31I have a page for my car for your car. Yeah, I put your own car pretty often. Okay
44:37Do you are you on LinkedIn? I am are you posting content on LinkedIn? I do not know. Okay, we're gonna change
44:45You're gonna need to post original
44:48Original content. All right on LinkedIn
44:49I can do that and that goes for anybody that's listening LinkedIn is a place to be they're leaning a lot more into video
44:55Short-form video you want to be the business tick-tock business YouTube platform. So
45:01It's a great place to be. Yeah
45:04final words of wisdom
45:06I'll add to the LinkedIn part is I have been on LinkedIn forever
45:10But I wasn't sure what to do with it until recently because I'm in a lot of calls with
45:16Politicians business professionals lenders, etc. Yeah, and I don't know them. So I'm going I keep noticing I go to their LinkedIn page
45:23Yeah, and it didn't occur to me
45:24What are they seeing when they come to ours, correct?
45:26So I actually just mandated that we all clean that up and we're it's a project right now. I love it
45:31That's why I've been posting videos. I'm kind of experimenting with it. Keep it going. I love it. Absolutely
45:36Love it. Any any words of wisdom for somebody that's listening to this? I would say just
45:40Continue to do something. Yeah, don't give up
45:45Always be doing something
45:47Awesome. Thanks again to toast check out family style
45:51You'll see whenever I'm not sure when season one is gonna season two episode one with San Pedro fish market
45:57But we'll put a link to family style in the show notes. We appreciate you toast if you're a toast user
46:03Hit me up because we're looking for more restaurant rebels to feature season two season three and
46:08As always stay curious get involved ask for help and come check out San Pedro fish market and follow Kings of Fish
46:16Thank you guys
46:19Thank you for listening to restaurant influencers if you want to get in touch with me
46:23I am weirdly available at Sean P. Walsh FSH a WN P
46:29WALCH EF
46:31Cali barbecue media has other shows you can check out digital hospitality. We've been doing that show
46:37Since 2017. We also just launched a show season 2 family style on YouTube with toast and
46:44If you are a restaurant brand or a hospitality brand and you're looking to launch your own show
46:49Cali barbecue media can help you recently. We just launched
46:53Room for seconds with Greg Majewski. It is an incredible
46:58insight into leadership into hospitality into enterprise restaurants and
47:03Franchise franchisee relationships. Take a look at room for seconds
47:07And if you're ready to start a show reach out to us be the show dot media. We can't wait to work with you