Hey there, thanks for joining me again on the podcast. Today’s guest Kacie Dancy is the vice president of operations for A family owned business that has a 44 year tradition. It’s called Pop’s Beef and they really have stumbled on, or I shouldn’t say stumbled upon, they’ve worked at this for 44 years, but they have the magic formula to running great restaurants and it’s so family oriented with community involvement and no labor staffing issues and just a happy family, happy guests, happy team, and a growing business.

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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So glad you’re here. And Kacie, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Thanks for having me. I’m great. How are you?

I’m really excited to talk to you. I’m great as well. I’m excited to talk to you because this is all about a family business with a long lasting 40 year tradition and there’s so many key learnings here, but tell us what’s your story?

I mean, you grew up in a family business. Did you start at a very early age and just throw your, get thrown into the business whether you liked it or not, but you learned a lot. My

dad started the business in 1980. So it was around before I was, I would say it was his first child before I was his first child.

And so, I have pictures from little bitty baby to, toddler years to teenage years, and then now still in the business. So, it was 44 years in March. So we’ve been around a really long time. Yeah. And it’s cool because what the coolest part is that location still exists. It’s our corporate location.

And a lot of the customers and a lot of the, their kids now they’ve worked in that, they’re, they worked in the rest, they’ve worked in our restaurant. So it’s cool to see generational we’ve had stories about people that have worked there and got married afterwards and people that have moved away and come back.

And so. It’s just really cool because I feel that our customers and employees have become truly a family and I I can contribute that to our success and I love it.

That begs the question because very similar to my restaurants, it was, like you said, it was about the customers feeling like family, it was like your team feeling like family, and everything for us was all about hospitality.

So hospitality, family, and fun was our company culture. Would you say you have a company culture and how would you describe it?

I would truly say, and we have employees now, I will always say nobody’s dream job is to work the line at a fast food restaurant, right? But if you treat them like family, and if if that family atmosphere and they’re having fun, there’s no reason why they won’t stay with you.

And because it is a family, it is not always easy and it’s restaurants are hard. And so I think if that culture is not there to begin with, then there’s no reason for them to stay. And so, I think families, the reason we’re successful and that we treat our employees like family.

You’ve talked about earlier you said something about your guests had kids that worked in the restaurants and that sort of thing, and I think you’ve got a reputation and word had gotten around, one, this is a fun place, it’s a family business, they treat people differently than the average business, and I’m asking if you’ve had any labor challenges, because most of the industry is still struggling with short staffing and not only getting people, but getting really great people.

I will say it is crazy. I mean, during COVID, it was a hard time for us, people were, it was very difficult. But we had people that were in jobs that had been let go, that had come back to our restaurant because they knew we needed help. There were kids that were going to school that had left, college, but they were doing online courses and they would work for us at night because that’s just who we are.

They knew we needed help and everyone pitched in to, to help. So it was so cool to see so many different employees from, I mean, in older employees, I mean, we had, teachers that had been done with, and then they were like, Oh, do you need help at night? We can come help you at night.

And so, It’s just so cool to be a part of that atmosphere and that, everybody wants to help. It’s truly like a community, it’s not just, a restaurant, on, on the corner that, everyone’s oh, good luck there. So it’s really cool.

Sounds very inclusive.

We don’t really have,

I would say, the labor shortages that many do have because of that.

I think there’s a key learning right there in how you’re building relationships through the community and people that had worked there before have come back to help out. And it was so much fun. It’s even if they have a couple of hours to contribute, they can come in and, oh, that’s terrific.

That was super helpful. Now, when you’re hiring or recruiting, I should say, or when you’re finding new people, is there a specific onboarding formula that you have to indoctrinate people into the culture and what you expect and what this Business is really all about to put their best foot forward for your customers.

So we always love kids. And when I say kids, teenagers, the high school students, and if you get them young enough, then they stay with you. A lot of them do community college or, when they’re looking for their first job. A lot of people are working multiple jobs these days.

So, we’ll fill in. So we like them young and then we train them. And like I said, they’re usually part of the community. They live close to our stores. Their parents probably frequent our locations. So, definitely, again, trying to pull into that family the family of pops. And so, all of our, I would say all of our restaurants pull from the community.

Now of course, our full time employees the guys that work in the back in the line it’s a little different, but again, they, a lot of them their wives or their sisters or their nieces that, they work in the restaurant as well. So, I would say it’s very rare that we have somebody that’s random, so to say, that just fills out an application and walks in.

It’s truly kind of word of mouth and that family atmosphere gets out there that we’re a great company to work for. And so then they end up applying and they’re with us. for a couple years, not, or more, not just, the six months or three months that you normally see in the fast food industry.

Terrific. Are you finding that teenagers today have a work ethic and that once you tell them what the expectations are, they rise to that challenge? Do you ever have any issues? They really have a great approach.

The dang cell phones are the problem. Oh yeah. They want to be on the cell phones. But I think everybody needs to put their children in, in, In hospitality.

I think my children will work in the restaurant. I think it teaches so many amazing things for kids these days. It teaches them customer service. It teaches them humility. It teaches them how to talk to people. I just think it’s an amazing vehicle for their career, even if they don’t stay in the restaurant industry that they need to be working in it with people.

They need to be working and they need to learn how to do this, to have a conversation with someone, not this. And so, it is hard, of course, that they’re teenagers, like anything else. But I think it’s so important, no matter, who they are, what they are, what their background is, that they need to be working in the restaurant industry because it teaches so many values, I think, that kids are missing out on these days.

Yeah, life skills.

Life skills, exactly.

Absolutely. Yeah, this is one business where you can literally rise to the top without a formal education if you’ve got that passion and I think you’ve seen that. You’ve probably got any success stories of any kids that started with you that went on to great things either in hospitality or outside of it that you mentored or they shadowed other great people within the POPs family?

I would say that there’s, We have a couple now. Influencers, obviously, are a big deal. So, a couple of our we have a couple that got married they were 16 when they started, they got married when they were in their 20s, and now their daughters are these foodie influencers, and so they’re looking to open a restaurant, a franchise of ours, and they’ve interviewed, our stores, and that’s cool, but we’ve had a lot of teachers government, government, people that are in governments that are that have worked at our location.

We have people all over the country and that’s like I said one of the things that they always go away but then every time they come back to visit their family that’s still in the area they always come back to our locations and that’s always cool to see them again. So I don’t know any specific that they’re anybody famous or anything like that but it’s always cool to see a familiar face.

It is for sure. This is a natural segue to brand building. And I know that’s one of the key things is you’re building and you’re continuing to build on a legacy brand. And there’s a difference between marketing and actual brand building. And if you were to go out and query the public in any of your communities and say, what does Pops mean to you?

There’s got to be a common thread. What would that be? What would you say your brand is really all about?

I would like to say that it’s our devotion to our community. I mean, when I tell you that we are always looking for ways to get involved in the community, whether it’s like this summer, the local readers club, when the kids read books, we give them free hot dogs or for Frankenstein Friday, we do free hot dogs for the kids, or we’re partnering with Red Cross blood.

We’re going to do a blood drive with them. So whether it’s a national level we used to do hotdog eating contests on 4th of July and get all the community to come in. That’s fun. We sponsor the American Cancer Society. So whether it’s national level or local level with the schools we’re always the fire, the police the hospitals, like I said, COVID was a big time.

We were constantly dropping off food to the hospitals and police and fire. But I just think that we are always looking a way to give back. We do the dine and donate for the kids, the softball teams and the baseball teams. We have big festivals, we’re always trying to do, like I said, any way to get into the community to give back.

To know that, not only do we appreciate their support, but we love to support them as well.

Yeah, that’s obviously there’s definitely a noble approach to the community that I’m hearing and you’re doing good for the right reasons. With that said there’s also a marketing aspect to that where.

You’re visible in the community and doing good means people are going to patronize you. Are any of these programs that you’re giving to trackable from a marketing standpoint?

So that’s hard and it was funny. My dad was here who was the CEO of the company. For the first 30 years, he never marketed to advertise nothing.

It was all word of mouth. And so to this day, he still doesn’t love marketing and advertising. He thinks if you treat the customer if they have a good experience, they’re going to use the word of mouth. They’re going to tell their friends about it. And that’s how you stay in business. And so he will truly say that it’s not the marketing and advertising that gets the customers in the door.

It’s the word of mouth and giving them a good experience. From not only does it taste good, they’re going to greet you at the door, they’re going to smile, they’re going to be friendly, you’re going to get the full experience. And so, that’s been tough to get him to see the benefits of marketing advertising.

So to answer your questions as far as trackability we do a lot of these national hot days. Wednesday is actually national hot dog day. If you didn’t know, you can’t miss that one. No, you cannot. And so, we do, of course, our POS system. We have a very good POS system, but it’s all trackable.

And you can obviously see, we do the, like I said, we do text message programs. We’re launching our app soon. And so, through that, we’ve seen more and more, like I said, trackability, but. He says that if they have a good experience and you treat them right, and they get a good sandwich that you don’t really need to track.

And so he’s the anti marketer advertiser, if you could even believe that. He doesn’t really love it.

I wouldn’t argue that point. In my businesses, we did the same thing. We honestly believe that our team, our staff were our best marketers. And if they built relationships with our guests, those people were going to be loyal.

They were going to come back again and again. And when we did marketing, we did, out of the box things that were attention getters that attracted the attention of people, but they were designed to bring people in for another visit. So we. We spent very little on marketing, but everything we spent was trackable, and we could tell if there was a return on it.

And so, I think there’s a balance there. I don’t disagree with your dad’s philosophy, this is, a whole new age of restaurants, and obviously you need a website. But I’m sure you’re doing social media things as well. Do you have a dedicated social team that does all your social posts, and what’s the strategy?

How often, what do they post?

So it’s funny. So as much as the customers love the communication aspect and to be acknowledged in the store, they also love that communication aspect in social media. And so I think so often that on social media, people just post and just run away from it.

I think that it’s another great way to have a conversation in social media. And so when someone posts. And then you can post back. And we have our super fans, of course, that are posting for us. And so a lot of that’s amazing, right? Brand

ambassadors, I call

them. But what’s really cool is our social media, the girl that runs our social media team, she works at she’s been working for us since she’s 16.

She’s now 36. So for 20 years. And so she still is working in our store. But what’s cool about it is she’s posting real live Things that are happening in the store, someone making a hot dog, someone making a burger. It’s not like you’re just your picture perfect cheeseburger that’s being thrown out there, or National Hot Dog Day.

We have this girl that dresses up in a hot dog. It’s authentic. She dresses up in a hot dog costume and she’s out there dancing. And so, yes, it’s genuine. It’s authentic. It’s real time. And so I think that’s important for social media. Don’t forget that communication aspect. It’s still, even if it’s through a computer.

Let’s go back to your story. Now you started at a young age. I’m assuming you worked most, if not all the positions in pops, right? So you have a very good understanding of, how things operate behind the scenes and the front of house and the back house, all that kind of stuff. Is there a point where you transitioned into more management and how long ago would that have been?

Ben, and what was your career trajectory within your restaurant? What other things did you do before you became director or VP of operations?

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Family’s hard, family best restaurants, I don’t, you mentioned having a family restaurant yourself, so you understand and you’re expected to be there when no one else can.

And Yeah. Yeah. I think that one of my dad’s biggest success point is that he’s, he, I mean, for the first X amount of years, I mean, he was the one that was there bell to bell, right? Open to close every day. And so for me to transition into more of a corporate role is, it’s very hard because He doesn’t see the corporate role as working.

If you’re not in that restaurant serving a hot dog, you’re not working. Old school,

yeah.

If you’re not taking that customer’s order and seeing them eye to eye, they didn’t see you that day, you’re not working. And so we still to this day struggle with that. If I’m not in the restaurant enough because they’re not seeing my face and it’s hard.

He gets upset.

Wow, that’s interesting, isn’t it? So you got to find that balance, right? So you’re in the store, you’re still working the positions, it’s all hands on deck, I get that, but that’s true leadership also, because I believe that I’ve said this in many podcasts, and I won’t go into detail, but you don’t want to be the boss in the back office that’s just barking orders at people, you want to lead by example.

You show people that you’re not too important and that, that’s a way to gain respect, and it’s not your job, but it’s everyone’s job, and you’re part of that team, and you must find a balance between running the show and having the show go on, right? Because this is show business.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I will say too, though, most of our franchisees are all family as well. So the one guy that owns a couple stores in Indiana, He has 10 kids actually. And so four of his 10 kids are all, are all in the business. And then another one of our franchisees, there’s three sons and they all own a restaurant.

So, some of them are multi unit operators. And then my brother who’s still, who’s in the business as well, he is a multi unit operator. So it is cool to see that these franchisees not only have grown with us, but they also value the same things that we value as a brand and as a corporate.

All right. They’re very much family too. And so I love to see that, that’s being, down to, it’s not your cold franchise where it’s just cookie cutter and this is, you’re walking in and you’re not seeing a familiar face.

But consistency is vitally important also. And you want not only the quality of the product and the way that people treat you when you walk through the door and the service received and The cleanliness of the locations, like all those things.

Do you get involved in maintaining that consistency at all? I mean, do you a secret shop other stores?

Oh, yes, of course. So I live in a town couple over with there’s one in my town, but what’s cool too is our, all of our 17 locations are within south suburbs of Chicago and then in Indiana, Northwest Indiana.

So I live close to all of them. We have family and all of them. So. It’s funny if you have, my sister, is in Indiana and she’ll go, I went into the Indiana location and the beef just tasted a little, so you better believe my dad’s out there driving out to Indiana seeing why the beef tastes a little different.

And so, yes, very much so. Secret Shop we do have, I got from the corporate that secret, that goes into every store, make sure. What’s cool about a restaurant is each location cooks and slices their beef in house. So it’s not coming from a commissary, it’s actually coming from the location.

And that’s, got one of the things that’s so great about our sandwiches, it’s fresh it’s never frozen, all the things, but what’s also hard is the consistency about that, right? It depends on who’s cooking it that day, if they were trained, right? One of the craziest things is water. The water from Chicago to Indiana is different because well versus city.

And so that, so some of our stores had to put in a water purification system. I did that in one of

my locations also, because the water was not good. Water is different. And if you think about

beef gravy, 99 percent of beef gravy is water. And so it’s always, trying and trying to make it better and making sure it’s consistent and not just at our location, a corporate location, but all the locations.

Do you still have many company owned stores that aren’t franchised?

Just one. Okay. Just the appropriate location.

So the main location then?

Yes. It’s the only one that’s still He said that’s enough.

Okay. Yeah. How long did that operate before, I’m guessing, your dad explored the whole franchising route?

So we became a franchise in 2010. And so the only reason he did that was because we were always a license agreement before that. And so in 2010, the government kind of came after and we had 12 locations at that time. And they said, okay, here, you’re doing some things that are more at a franchise level than a licensing agreement.

And so we’re going to need you to switch over or else, we’re going to fine you and all the things. And so they looked into kind of what we were doing. They the government made us transition into franchise versus licensed gear man. And there were certainly growing pains because, franchisees that weren’t franchisees, that didn’t want to be franchisees, they were operating as a mom and pop shop.

Now we’re being told to have to operate as a franchise. And so we definitely experienced growing pains with that. But I think now, in seeing the, what we can do more is 17 versus a mom and pop one shop, they’ve, of course, since 2010 have seen the benefits of it. And so they’re on board.

You’re not alone in that. It’s ironic that a guest I had several episodes ago was the founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels that was in like all the airports and they did, they had the very same thing. It’s like they were, they had these licensing agreements, but they were crossing those boundaries and they were really operating like a franchise.

And the same thing, the government stepped in and said yeah, and they, it’s so ironic, the very same thing happens. So I’m glad you’re bringing that up because anyone who’s interested in expanding, In that regard, you don’t want to go down that road. You want to do it the right way. So,

and that’s quite a process,

I’m sure,

The legal and the expense, but it

is obviously a huge part of our industry and how it grows.

 Is there something that stands out that made the biggest difference in pop success other than the quality and the family oriented? Is there anything else I get? What are the competitive advantages? Because, quick serve is highly competitive and I don’t, and I guess I’m assuming in suburbs of Chicago, there’s lots of choices for food and dining and Burger places are all over the place, as are pizza places.

What’s your competitive advantage?

I don’t think that there is one thing ever that a restaurant does that gives them an advantage. I think it’s everything, to be honest with you. I mean, we laugh at my dad because although he’s up in age and he would like to say, I would like to say he’s retired, he would beg to differ.

Never retired. No, but he’s there every morning washing the windows and everyone gives him a hard time. Like what in the world are you doing? Don’t you have better things to do than wash the windows of your corporate restaurant? And he said, he’ll say it’s not one thing, it’s everything. And so I think from even just that, the customer coming in the window and seeing clean or coming in the door and seeing clean windows, like from a friendly face, from the uniforms that they’re wearing to, how that customer, first customer interaction, Good morning.

How are you? Would you like to try something? Like I said to the customer, to the family orientation of the business, to giving back to the community. I would like to say community involvement and treating our employees like family would be two of the top reasons that we’ve been so successful for 44 years.

But I truly do not believe that there is one secret. That I could, that anybody can get truly in. No magic formula, but you’ve got it. You’ve got it. Yeah.

I can relate to your dad because. After so much time and after putting your heart and soul and every dime you have into something to grow something really significant, it not only is it a legacy, but it’s your, that person’s identity.

And

he could, that would leave a huge hole in his heart and in his soul if he ever had to walk away and not be part of it. As he’s been part of it for so long and it’s the relationships and it’s the pride. And I know every listener is feeling that about the restaurant. It’s such a business of passion and pride and it runs so deep.

And I sold my restaurants in 2014. And to be honest with you, it took me three years to get over it.

Yeah, sure. To pivot and

do something else and to reinvent yourself. But I’m still in hospitality, obviously. But

yeah,

boy, when you run a place that you’ve grown from scratch, it’s like you put everything you have into it.

And,

and I think people don’t realize restaurants, you never have a day off. So it’s every day, morning, noon, and night. And so it becomes a way of your life, complete commitment. And so from going from one extreme to the next, and what’s the day off, we don’t know,

what do you, if labor’s been okay for you, and it’s not really a challenge, there are a lot of pain points and challenges in restaurants.

What are the biggest challenges for pops post pandemic? I mean, we all went through it, you guys survived it, you pivoted a hundred times, and the word has now become a cliche because the whole industry has had to do it. What are your challenges today?

Price, pricing, the cost of foods. I mean, that has been

inflation.

Inflation. Yes. It’s been it’s been crazy. And not only that, but consistency we are a beef stand. And so, we, we’ve always gotten kosher beef from Nebraska. And that was, a great thing. And we had been that way for so long and then you’d see COVID hit. And so a lot of the farming was impacted and, of course the pricing.

And so, just consistency, even our hot dogs are proprietary. And so you’ve seen the price skyrocket on our proprietary hot dogs. And of course you saw everything skyrocketed and, they’re tacking on all these extra fees for the. You know, all the things. Oh yeah.

Delivery fees, everything.

Delivery

fees. Yes. And gas. And so, and we always thought okay, so once, COVID pandemic hit, we understood, but then when the pandemic kind of, dwindled and everything went back to normal, so to say The prices never went back to normal. And so, what, how do you function?

And obviously you pass that cost on to your customers, but then, how do customers afford your sandwich, a sandwich that was once 4.99 is now 6.99. And so that’s hard, and I will say that we are in a niche market, so we’re, although we’re fast casual, we’re a little bit higher up, I would say, than your normal, but We’re not buying dining by any means.

So I feel that we are in that middle. And so we’ve been lucky where, whether, we’re recession proof, we like to say a lot of times because people are still going to eat out. But it’s hard. And that, and we’ve, and my dad’s always Oh, I feel bad. I feel bad. I’m like, okay, but at what point are you breaking even, or if not losing money, we’re not in business to lose money by any means.

So that cost has to be passed on, but it’s hard to see, what the price has done in such a short time.

So there’s a lot to unpack there and it really begins with what you first said and it’s about you cannot lose the value proposition to your customer, and you can’t get to the point where someone says it’s just not worth it to pay this for that because right in my mind This is a reasonable price.

This is what I’m used to paying and everyone understands inflation, but it’s like suddenly, And maintaining margins is a huge challenge. So now you got to find efficiencies, inter efficiencies and negotiating with suppliers and all that sort of thing. So I guess the big picture is, are you negotiating based on the leverage you have of so many stores?

Is it a buying group that gives you leverage to maintain a certain price based on volume?

So, a lot of franchises have kind of one vendor that they go to, and we’ve always kept our vendor options open, which is good and bad for a lot of reasons. But we have about three or four that we can go between and price shop.

And not, and we’re not as strict as a franchise saying you can only buy from this vendor. And so they’re allowed to price shop, which is good and bad. For a lot of reasons, and so I think it keeps them honest, the vendors honest in a lot of ways to be able to compare, right?

So why are you charging me this when this guy’s charging me this? And so, we’ve done that, which like I said, has its ups and downs because in buying power, when you’re had that contract pricing your contract pricing is great, but then, tomato, like for example, tomatoes right now are, cheap, but your contract pricing’s here, but in the winter when, you’re buying tomatoes at your contract pricing and everywhere else is way more expensive.

It works out. So, it definitely has its pain points, but like I said, between being able to vendor shop a little bit helps us.

It does. Now, what about financial controls? What are the things internally? And I don’t know if you get involved with that or if you’ve got a CFO type person that is constantly monitoring your Key performance indicators.

But tell me about your controls. Are you taking regular inventory? How often are you costing out that menu? Things along those lines.

So I will say that we don’t normally, we don’t, so that’s a thing for our franchise. We don’t evaluate other franchisees profits. And so,

But you’re doing the corporate store, clearly.

We

do the corporate store, yep. And we have somebody that kind of monitors all of that, of course. Price shop, they’re constantly shopping, making sure the margins are where they need to be. And so I don’t as much have, to do with that side of the business, but of course that it’s very important that someone is in place to do that for us.

Sure. Food and labor costs being the biggest expenses, that sort of thing.

So

great. I’m glad we’re talking about it because there are a lot of restaurants out there that, that think that. Taking inventory is figuring out what the order is, as opposed to the calculation that tells you the value of the goods that you have on hand, and that when you take a regular inventory, hopefully every single week, you’re keeping in what I call the sweet spot.

So if your food cost is a 28%, you want to make sure that every week it’s a 28, because suddenly if it spikes to 35, and if you don’t take inventory, you don’t know, you’re losing money. I mean, all these things are really important for operators. So I’m glad to hear that, that you’re doing that. We talked about marketing, but are there any loyalty programs in place with with your marketing program that keep people coming back that are

either

established or how does that work?

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So right now we have a text message program, which we love that right now we’re trying to bring it in house. And so I would say anybody that has any type of program the benefits of keeping it in house are huge. The text message program, how it was currently working is you to send this text blast out, but you don’t really know who’s coming back and who’s using it because they’re just flashing a phone at the, at the person that’s taking your order.

And so, with the app now you’re able to track the guests that are coming in and actually using that, the coupon, so to say, if you will a lot of our stores do bounce back cards. And so, if you like I said, for a lot of the holidays, we’ll keep them up. a bounce back card and so they’ll scratch it off and you come back and redeem those so we can obviously see how many customers are not only shopping us on a national hot dog day but then you get a bounce back card for a free hot dog and then so they’re coming back to us and so that’s cool we have we do a lot of the stores do the punch cards you know you buy 10 beef sandwiches you get one free that’s a big one but i would say the biggest thing that we’re looking to do is like i said bring all of our through the app you Bring all of our, whether it’s email marketing, whether it’s the text message program all of it in house.

So we were able to better track the customers that are using it. And what’s cool is that even if they’re redeeming it and they haven’t redeemed it in a month, you can send out a text message. Oh, we miss you. Here’s 20 percent off your next order. And so with programs like that, I think it’s cool that you can bring it in house and it’s the trackability on those customers is way more beneficial for them.

And for us too, that you’re sending coupons to people that are going to actually use them versus not.

So you’re using text messaging and that’s part of your stack that’s obviously been proven to work and you can actually track it because the coupons or the redemptions are happening and you can see it happening.

And there’s a data capture obviously to that as well. So you have a database of numbers and that sort of thing. Yep. Is there, I’m sure there’s a lot of recognition of regular people that come in all the time. Your staff get to know them and, hey Tony, hey Sue, thanks for coming in, that kind of thing. That’s important as well.

And you’re tracking national holidays, like the hot dog day thing and all that. And these are all opportunities that, that some operators would miss. So I’m glad you brought those up.

Yeah, there’s always a national holidays. I mean, there’s national guacamole day, there’s national, there’s always a national holiday every month that you can take advantage of.

Always. Yeah it’s amazing. If you would actually Google it or look it up, there are so many food holidays, right? So you definitely want to take advantage

of it. We’re known for milkshakes too. And so there’s National Milkshake Day, Ice Cream Day. I mean, really, there’s so many different days to take advantage of.

And so if you’re desperate for something, the National Holidays is something to take, to capitalize on.

Do you have drive thrus in any of the locations? Yes,

actually, so that’s another cool thing about our franchise. There’s a lot of different, so we have a couple of our restaurants are in gas stations, which is super cool.

Oh, I love

that. Old gas stations?

Sorry?

Are they, you mean, they used to be gas stations? No.

They’re actually gas stations still. Oh, they’re

part of gas stations. They’re a part

of a gas station. Gotcha, oh, gotcha.

That’s very cool.

It is cool. They’re a part of a gas station. It’s all built in traffic, right?

People are filling their cars and they come in and, And it’s on a truck

driver’s like I said it’s. An automatic customer, they’re stopping to fill their truck and they get a beef sandwich to go. So, it’s a win. But yes again, my dad would always say if he could do it again.

And so it’s very interesting. Our restaurant, the corporate location, has no seating, has no drive thru, it’s carry out only. So it’s very small. You walk up, you get your sandwich and you go. And so, And it’s the top grossing store out of all of them, but of course you can contribute that also to how many years we’ve been in business.

But the restaurant model now is surely expanded. We have ones in gas stations, we have drive through, we have the walk up of course, we have dine in. I think any avenue that you can take capitalizes on as far as whether it’s the, whatever it is, you want to get your revenue in the door.

Some of our stores have gambling now in, in them and so that’s a whole another customer point of sale. No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that any Additional profit centers are important. Exactly. Anything additional that you can add to your restaurant, I don’t see why you wouldn’t take advantage of it.

I think it, I believe looking at your website, you have a catering program, right? Do you cater?

Oh yes. Yep. Absolutely. Let’s talk about

that. These are community events and good customers will say, Hey, my work needs 30, orders of Lunch, burgers, dogs, the whole nine yards. And do you, you deliver all that?

You bring it on site? Tell me about your program.

So a lot of it is actually more catered toward family parties. So graduation parties Christmas is our number one time of year, of course all the Christmas parties, office parties. And so, yeah, so we do, of course, Do tons of catering. And it’s cool.

The restaurants that are in the gas stations, there are a lot, they’re by like the Amazon buildings and the Walgreens, so they’ll cater sandwiches for hundreds, which is really cool for the additional business for the gas stations. And so, catering is big for us.

It’s really big. It’s a whole nother aspect to the restaurant. Business and so, and you need a great team for that. I mean, catering is not easy when you’re catering for hundreds, especially, but we have a really good catering program and it’s a great way to eat our sandwiches and stuff, at home versus.

So, some are, you can walk in and sit down and that sort of thing, so you order at the counter and then you take it to the table and that sort of thing?

Yeah, absolutely.

Right on, awesome. What about retail merchandise? Have you branded any goods that you can sell?

No, we do have a lot of fun swag. I mean, like for National Hot Dog Day, we have actually, we have I was just had these because I was handing them out, but like beach balls, we got frisbees, we got chapsticks.

We’ve had, oh yeah. The Yeti Cubs branded. I think it’s another fun way, and these are all giveaways that we do for all their national holidays. It’s fun. People take it, the kids love it. Adults love it. Of course they do. With the frisbees, people were having, do you have any extra?

My dog loves frisbees. So any way that you could take advantage of a customer, even if the customer is a dog. I mean, why not, right?

You must cover a lot of ground week to week and day to day. Do you have a typical, is there a typical day in your life

as

the VP of Ops? Is every single day different?

Like, how do you start your day and how do

I think it’s, and I don’t know, good or bad, you log into the computer, right? And you see all your list of emails. And a lot of times it’s setting up stuff in the backend, whether it’s the different price specials that we’re having that day.

And then just seeing where your day takes you. I mean, a lot of times it’s in the, like I said, my dad would say he starts his restaurant washing, or his days washing windows, right? Absolutely. No fingerprints.

That’s an impression. That’s a negative impression.

There’s always the, easy days and hard days, right?

So right now, I’m running out to all the locations, making sure that they have all the swag for Wednesday for their National Hot Dog Day. And so day to day is different, whether we’re trying to build a program out for the next national holiday, or we’re trying to get the stuff out to the stores, or, somebody always needs something.

So whether it’s maybe someone called in sick and I might have to go in and walk and work the line, it is what it is. And so every day is different.

You mentioned you love your POS system. Tell us about your tech stack. What’s necessary today for technology?

Um, we’ve tried a lot of different POS systems over the years.

And I always said if I wasn’t in the restaurant business industry, I would go into the tech side of it because the POS side, I feel like a lot of people are lacking in that industry. But what we have found is with Toast and I’m a big advocate for Toast. We’ve had Toast now for four for four years.

And I just think that they are top notch with customer, the customer experience where the, It’s forward facing, so you can be selling, pictures of your sandwiches to be able to, the customers to be able to read on there what they’re ordering. You could text message a receipt the back end has all the KDSs from a trackability standpoint, being able to track all your items you can even, and there’s so many partnerships So, maybe if it’s something that Toast doesn’t have, they partner with all these different companies to be able to provide that for you, which is really cool.

And they’re all integrated programs. So like our app will be integrated with our Toast POS system. And so I’m a big advocate for Toast. I love, I can’t say enough good things about them.

Terrific. So you’ve got online ordering through Toast as well. Exactly

right. Yep.

And you have an app now or it’s being developed?

It’s being developed. Yep. Currently being developed. We’re hoping to launch it in the fall. So fall, so summer is really busy for us. And Christmas, winter is really busy. So that fall that back to school time is when we slow down a little bit for the restaurants. And so we’re looking to launch it then.

Terrific. Fantastic.

Yeah.

It’s been a joy talking to you today. I mean, I like to say you’re an operator’s operator. You get your finger on the pulse of the whole organization. You’re proud of your brand. You’re every single day growing that brand. You’re trying to, trying to show your dad new ways without getting him too upset.

It’s interesting.

Yeah. They always say, what got you here won’t get you there. So, you’ve got to constantly be looking for new ways to grow the business and get that customer in the door. So,

we’re trying, I’m working

on them.

There’s benefits to his approach and your approach and it all is part of the whole of a great brand called Pops and I’m really glad that you spent some time with us today.

Thank you.

Last question. Any advice to operators today that, that really want to grow their business forward? Not necessarily franchise, but anything that you can do to encourage them to overcome these challenges, whatever they are, maintain that passion and pride and just move that business forward. I love your energy.

I’m thinking you’ve got some good advice. No, you

know what? I would say get in your business. I would say that the people that are struggling the most are the ones that are hands off. And I say if you’re not working your restaurant every day, are you talking to the people in your community?

Are you talking to your customer? Are you talking to your employees? I think on the ground level is where you’re going to get all the feedback that you need for your restaurant success. Honest to God.

Thank you so much for being with us, Kacie. It’s been our pleasure.

Thank you very much. And if you’re ever in the Chicagoland area, please stop in for a beef sandwich.

I’ll look you up. I get there every year for NRA,

generally, so I’m

sure. And we have a

very robust menu. So if you don’t like beef sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, Oh,

I like all that stuff.

Euro sandwiches, hot dogs, salads, we got it all.

Yeah,

we

would call that American comfort food. It’s what everybody loves.

That’s part of the Yes.

Absolutely.

Fantastic, Kacie. Thanks again.

Thank you very much. Take care.

That was the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. Thanks so much to our audience for tuning in. Can’t wait to see you again next time, so stay tuned, stay well, and we’ll see you then.

Thanks for listening to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. For lots of great resources, head over to restaurantrockstars. com. See you next time.