Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Wahoo's Founder on AI, Failure, and 38 Years of Grind | Coffeez Ep. 307

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Wahoo's Fish Taco founder Wing Lam sits down with Joe after 38 years in the game. Buying Thrifty Ice Cream, why AI still can't replace hospitality, the trades comeback, launching brands on social media, referrals over everything, the mistakes that cost him a fortune, and why networking is the biggest opportunity most people miss.New episodes every week. Pour up.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One, two. I'm Meredith, welcome to coffee with Joe Shallaby. So you're gonna be my coffee. I'm your coffee girl. Yeah. Well, I like a little almond latte. Ice? Yes, perfect.

Perfect. This is the best place. You get coffee? We also get chocolate. Oh, my. Cheers. Cheers, here, I have one too. Yes.

So, Wing, I have a question. Yes. How many times have people asked you, why did you open a taco place instead of a wing place? You know, that's a great question. It's just that I like tacos is way more. than I like wings. I agree.

Well, good to have it. I'll show you to Joe. All right. My mother, what's up? Welcome to you. I love it, I love it. I got my coffee right here. All right.

All right. Perfect, boom. Cheers, my friend. It's been a couple years since we've had you on the show. Has anything changed with your morning routine since I asked you last? Surfing more, swimming more. Okay. Getting ready for a big event this year.

What are you swimming for? Well, I got to get in shape. You're already in shape. I'm pretty good. shape, but you got to be in swimming shape is different, right? Surfing, yes, but there is an annual event that happens every September. It's the Ben Carlson paddle from Catalina to Newport. It's a 30-mile. So just think of a, yeah. On your surfboard? On a paddle board. So my thing is, I'll be the oldest guy to paddle the event this year. Wow. So for me, you're doing the paddle out. Yeah, so 30 miles. So it's

about seven hours, give or take. So it's a marathon on the water. That's incredible. When is that? It would be September 19th. That'd be a cool event to do. So if you're in shape, come on in. You can join me. We've got to practice still. Yeah, how often do you practice? I swim about four to five days a week right now. So I'm there. I mean, pretty good shape right now. Swim shape and paddleboard shape are different. It's not, as long as your shoulders are juiced up and ready and greased up, You can do it. Yeah. But yeah, you got to get on your paddle.

But more important, you got to keep those shoulders moving. Yeah, exactly. You know, Wing, it's been such a pleasure. Last time we got to connect. We've been obviously at some events together. We got to do the California Love Drop, which was a huge blessing. I'd like to participate in, of course, in an event like that again, California Love Drop is a... Yeah, and something I really admire about you is your heart is just a heart of gold.

Your heart is always in the right place. You always want to serve. You always want to do God's work and just be a light to people. and you have been a light and it shows in what you've done and what you've built and the Wahoo's organization. Yeah. No, it's been great. Like I said, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have done well.

And my job is to go out and spread the love and share with the guys that don't have quite as good as we do. That's right. Yeah. Now, what's new with Wahoos? Have you expanded more stores? I'm seeing more in, like, airports. Yeah. So actually, the airport's been a little delayed.

It was supposed to been open by May of this year. So we're about four months behind. So it's now a little construction delay. We'll be ready to open in October. So we're super excited to be at the Orange County Airport. Nice. Been seeing that sign for a while. And in the meantime, Austin, Texas is done really well.

We came back about a year and a half ago in Lakeway, which is what we call it, the Newport Beach of, you know, Austin, Texas. And now we're going ready to go into downtown. So it should be just as we speak, it should be getting ready to open right now. You know, Wayne, Wayne, um, At your age, you're still just in ultra grind mode. You're, you know, something young, 50 something young. Yeah. 50 something young, yes.

And you just have this perpetual drive to always just get better and continue to dominate in your field, in an ultra-competitive business. What is it that really drives that motivation for you? You know, is when people come to you, even when I'm in a competitor's restaurant, somebody will come up with, hey my God, I love wazas, and I'm like, we're at a pizza place, so let's maybe enjoy the pizza wall right here. But I mean, it's nice, right? So the people that, you know, basically can tell me stories about them eating, their kids, their grandparents, so both generations. So it's a multi-generation thing for me. So the fact that I've been added for 38 years and people still, relatively speaking, never come up to me and says, man, you suck, you know. So that day, I'm

hoping never happens, right? So that's what keeps me motivated because I want to, me sure I'm on top of everything. Everybody's following the recipes and putting out the best product we can. Now, I brought you here because there's something that's really nostalgic to me. I'm going to tell you the story. When I was 14 years old, my first job ever was selling ice cream at thrifties. And, you know, at 14, or no, you were allowed to work actually at 14 years old. Yeah, at 14 you can't. Back in my day, and you can't do that anymore. Some bunch of laws. 16 now we were. But whatever. But, you know, you were. But, you know, you were a lot of, you. You were. But, you You know, one of the things I like to do a lot when I was giving out, when I was scooping ice cream,

I would hook up everybody. Everybody would get an extra free scoop. Yeah. So that ended up getting me fired, but it was a, it was a cool learning lesson, you know, it was a cool learning lesson. And that nostalgia of thrifties ice cream and the joy that it brought to me and always getting free ice cream and giving people free ice cream and the joy I brought to people. But now thrifties, as you know, it's gone.

And I heard through the grapevine that, you know, my boy might be buying it. Well, so here's what happened. So I got a call. I mean, first I saw that somebody bought it, right? And I heard rumors that, you know, Monster Energy Drink bought it, right? So I'm friends with Hilton and Rodney to basically the majority owners of the company. And we've been friends for a long time.

So we were chit-chatty. And they're kind of go, yeah, but we're not going to talk about it anymore. I'm like, okay, whatever, right? So I kept asking the guys at Monster. He goes, when are going to get ice cream? Because I saw a freezer in their warehouse, Thrifty's ice cream freezer. but there was nothing in it. So a month or two go by and so after about three or four months, I'm like, I forgot about it.

Then I get a phone call from Hilton and goes, hey, my son-in-law, Donnie is running the company. I'm like, okay, so the rumor is true. You guys bought it out of bankruptcy, blah, blah, blah. But the stores, the actually pharmacies basically are still shut down. But the ice cream factory never stopped making ice cream. So it's the same place since the 70s in El Monte. And he goes, Wayne, we need to basically do what we used to do together with Monster, because I am the original retailer for Monster in the world. We did all the events with them, and we still do out quite a bit.

They said, can we do that with ice cream? I'm like, oh, my God, be totally fun. So we did an event with Vans, a video premiere for Steve Cavalero last fall, and people were coming in to get their burritos and tacos. And at the end of the line, there's these ice cream. And people are like, oh, my God. And everybody has a story, not quite as good as you. is giving away. But everything starts with it. I remember buying it for a nickel, a scoop, or 10 cents, or 25 cents, whatever the price was. But everybody has that nostalgic memory of it.

It was always an affordable treat. It's an affordable treat. That's the key. And you kept it affordable. Yes. So for me, it's like, well, can we start doing events? So we started taking it to our events. And, you know, because after you eat something spicy, there's nothing like eating something icy, you know, sweet, and, you know, whatever a savory. And it was amazing. So we've done multiple events. As we're speaking right now, we're getting ready to bring them to the summer X games, you know, again, in Sacramento next week where people are going to be, you know, again, eating our tacos and then maybe have some ice cream afterwards. And again, it's just one of those combinations, right, that you need something sweet after you eat something spicy, right? And it is

amazing. And here's the things that I learned. Because, I always thought, and I don't know if when you were working, there's probably about maybe a dozen flavors. Yeah. How many flavors do you think there are? I don't know. Now with Baskin-Robbins, you know, 31 flavors. I'm sure there's 100 of flavors.

There's 90 flavors, which I've never seen any of them until we did an event, the strawberry festival a couple of weeks ago. And I thought, okay, there's going to bring, I said, just bring strawberry ice cream because it's the strawberry festival, a garden road. And there's five flavors. I'm like, what are you talking about? Well, there's strawberry cheesecake. There's strawberry banana.

And I'm like, there's strawberry chocolate chip. And I'm like, what is all this? It goes, well, because we have a lot more that you don't know because it's sold to restaurants. So you never see it unless you see the mint chocolate chip, the chocolate, whatever. There's basically the core like dozen flavors. And then there's all these other ones that you'll never see. And here I am going, oh my God. So now getting the opportunity to go into the plant, which we got to go sometime.

Because if you work there, I'm telling you. The nostalgia associated with thrifties. I mean, I'm all in. I'm actually wondering if they're taking extra investors. What's the story with thrifties? I'd be a big advocate and a big partner. Well, let me ask those guys. Because as far as I know, they bought it straight up.

There's no financing involved. They bought it for cash. But the coolest thing is when you're eating ice cream straight out of the assembly line, it's more like custard and ice cream because it hasn't frozen yet. and it's like somewhere between custard and soft syrup and it is delicious. You know, now everything's like gelato and it's like nine bucks, a little tiny scoop and I'm like, gosh, you know, as thrifties were pennies, you know, and they brought the same joy. Yes. You know, and actually it was more joy because I would have to walk up a hill and down a hill to get to the thrifties, you know, and it was like laborious to get that ice cream.

You know, now they're getting driven to get their gelato. Like, come on, no struggle. And like you said, a family of four, you know, really. Relatively speaking, it's almost the same price as one person at a gelato place. Four people are going to have ice cream at thrifties. A family of four back in my day would be two bucks. Exactly. One little tiny scoop of gelato is seven.

So actually, it's a family of 16 that can have. And it's really good ice cream. It's great ice cream. Yeah. But that's one that got me off because we were talking about your favorite flavors, right? And we'll get to your favorite. But I didn't realize that when you go to an Asian restaurant in California, California and you get a scoop of green tea ice cream at the end, it's Thriftees.

I had no idea they made that. They're like the Niagara Waters ice cream. Pretty much. They make all the stuff and nobody knows. So when you're getting a pie al-a-a-moat, 90% of the time, that vanilla will be from them. Yeah. Well, that's good to know. Now we know everything's thrifty's ice cream.

Yeah. So what is happening with Thrifty's? What is your involvement in that? We're going to try to help them expand into the stadiums and to the events. and more important, bringing them into our store. So right now we're in the middle of finding space, it looks like two of our locations,

we're going to test it out because we're going to see, because labor is a big issue for everybody in the restaurant industry. So if we can have that little ding by the ice cream counter, so nobody has to be there full time, but as soon as you hear,

that ding, that means somebody wants to scoop, just like a thrifties. Yeah. So if we're going to use that model, I think it'll work. Now, last time we spoke, we mentioned labor on our podcast and how expensive labor has gotten for you, especially post-COVID.

Yep. Now, with obviously AI emerging, have you implemented AI strategies to really bring down your labor costs? We haven't yet. We've been talking about it to where we would humanize the experience by using like a tablet or a kiosk or something like that. You still haven't implemented those. We haven't because we haven't found the right software to use it. We know it exists. but again, it's not exactly inexpensive to do this.

But the idea that, you know, quote unquote, like if somebody came to your business and instead of talking to a machine, you would pop up in an AI slash, you know, augmented reality format and you would welcome, hey, good to see you again. Can I help you with whatever, right? So that's the idea. So we know that technology exists. Oh, that's out right now? I haven't seen that.

I just see kios and you can just like just go to the kiosks. It exists. But again, it's the expense. So if somebody would spend a little bit more, imagine you swiping your credit card down and my 3D image augmented reality pops out of the screen. Oh, that's going to be pretty cool. Joe, great to see you again. But it's the old adage, which is not that old, but it's a you can call it an old adage

because it'll be new now. It's new now, but it'll be old shortly. It's AI is costing more than human labor right now. Yes. I mean, that's a reality that we're facing. It's crazy how we explain. And people don't know. and all these guys at the end of the month, when they get their bills, they're like, oh, my God.

Yeah, I could have hired 20 people for this. Exactly. And I spent 80 grand to replace one person. Because they don't realize that every time you ask a question, the clock's ticking. Yeah. And the thing is, you're making an investment into AI. How much of a strategic investment is Wahoo is putting into AI right now in their current ecosystem? In the current ecosystem, we're using it more for PR because we can create videos,

which we already did. And again, testing it out through my friend Josh, we were able to use two versions of it, one me and you in real person, and then one creating through AI. And it turns out that, you know, the AI version, people think it's funnier, it's cute because people love cartoons, right?

So when you have something that's more user-friendly, people like to share because they think it's cute, well, there's an AI version of wing, a cartoon, right? people love it so we tested it out with a couple of events recently and the traffic that we generated through the promotion was way more than we anticipated so in a typical i call it direct mail piece at one or two percent we ended up getting close to 10 percent which is again relatively speaking so that's the only aspect you're using it right now right now because it's again relatively inexpensive to do it right because the same to create a video than it is to create a i video than it is to create a i video

Yeah. So again, not a lot of money yet, but the results seem to be better. Now, do you think it'll drive down the cost of, like, food or labor or the real hard expenses, rents? I mean, anything where it would really help, where the significant bottom line numbers or is just helping with marketing? I think right now marketing is the first thing that we're testing. The next thing would be, like, say, in-store, instead of having, let's say,

three or four cashiers, if you can get one of them down. And as long as the AI proposition replacing that one person is cost effective, right? So that's what we're at in that moment right now is deciding where is that, you know, break even, right? And everybody's trying it. And when you hear my friends that have other operations, right, other fast food concepts, saying that whenever they get somebody that's over 60, you know, in their store, and they look like a deer in the headlight going, uh, because they don't know how to order.

and there's nobody human to help them. So unless a young person behind them will say, excuse me, let me show you how to run through the menu. So sometimes the technology is ahead of the population, right? Yeah. So we just got, again, find that sweet spot where everything meets. Well, I think where the solution is having that augmented AI human to really help them walk through or just take their order.

Yeah, just take your order for now. But again, so the idea that you can have 100% one or the other doesn't work. A combination is where we're going to end up at. But finding the sweet spot of the number of employees to the number of kiosks is where, because remember, those kiosks aren't cheap and they have a tendency to go down. And they have a tendency to break down. So who's your tech guy on staff to fix that?

Yeah. So that's a hint. Who's going to be a six-figure earner? There you go. So there's always that. Quarter million dollars for your tech guy to fix the kiosk that breaks. Exactly. So there you go.

Who told me this was a good idea? Joe, you said AI was going to make. to get my costs. Exactly. But even in your industry, right? At the end of the day. We're actually using it for marketing primarily. Yeah, primarily.

It would be the biggest variable. Yeah. And then our investors are using it for like underwriting. We're using it for some of our systems. Yeah. You know, we're having various chat bots for customer service. Yep. So the customer service element, but you don't need a hotline for Wahoos.

No, no. Not yet. Yeah. Because the answers, you know, questions are relatively, I got my chicken instead of beef, whatever. Yeah, unless, yeah, actually, you do need that for taking phone orders. Yeah, we do. And again, that's one of the things.

People still like to either order online, which they don't need to talk to anybody, but they kind of like getting to know the person at the store, the managers, and the cashiers. Because it's, believe it or not, a lot of our regulars feel more comfortable knowing that the person at the other end knows exactly the way they like their food to be done. so AI can't really do that yet. Yeah. But once you're kind of in the system, it'll remember. So that's a good part about AI. And there's empathetic AI where they will be able to develop like a emotional relevance and understanding of that one person.

And then they'll be able to be like, hey, John, how are your kids? I heard they had a baseball game the other day. Yeah. But again, it's all coming. Right. And it's a matter of fact. Again, but you want it to be more personal than just a robot. You also have humanoid robots kind of coming into market.

Any, any, it's getting better? Yeah, those guys are, those guys could be a good resource. Yeah. So again, cost at the end of the day, like, oh, my God, how much money to program that thing? That's right. That's right. Now, what do you really find the most joy in right now? Is it building a Wahoos?

Is it coming up with a new, concept, a new business? Is it, you know, California love job, your philanthropy projects? What is the most joy for you out of all those things? You know, it's a combination. You know, it's always fun right now, like doing wedding rehearsals. How exciting is it for me to be in that league where, you know, in the old days, it would be at a hotel, it would be a full, you know, five-star catering company. And somebody that grew up eating our food goes, hey, I would love it if you guys did that for me. And I'm like, okay, you want tacos for your rehearsal or this. So like, again, because it is a monumental, like a date, you know, like significant, you know, happening in your

life. This is not just a graduation party. It's a major milestone. So for us to be a part of that experience, that excites me. I mean, the other day, we did a baby shower, right? And again, we're welcoming somebody to our world. And for us to be a part of that, like, you know, And again, such a blessing. These are those moments where I'm like, we're doing baby showers, we're doing weddings.

So these things excite me from the food perspective, right? And the fact that next week we have to go to the summer X games and we'll be doing food for all the athletes. So again, they could have anything they want at that level. And I happen to be the number one choice to be the food for the athletes. So that excites me.

You've always been the number one choice for the X games. So yeah. I mean, it's always been fun. Yeah, you've always been. That would be cool if you were the number one choice for FIFA. Hey, but right now I'm literally negotiating about possibly doing something at the U.S. Open of tennis. That'd be cool. You know what I mean?

So these exciting me, because again, the brands are like, why not bring something from California all over to New York? You know, nothing is cooler than, you know, surf culture. Yeah. Right? Surf beach culture in Newport, Southern California. And you have really embodied that surf. beach vibe. Yep.

And even down to what you're wearing right now. I mean, like literally you're just as California. Like you rock that style. And, you know, when you think surf beach culture, you think Wahoos. You think wing. Yes. You know, you got stickers made of your imagery. You know, it's pretty crazy.

No, it is really fun. And to branch out to like we're doing a pickleball tournament this weekend. New sports. Huge. Yeah. So all very dangerous. Exactly. And again, but it's the whole active lifestyle.

and people are fashionable and everything and partnering up with old and new brands like K-Swiss, build clothing, all these new brands and old brands are like, hey, why not be a part of the whole experience? So again, you keep hearing experiential marketing and all that. That's what people want. Well, I just want to be a part of that vibe and what's happening. And the same thing, Warp Tour came back last year. And so in July, we have the Warp Tour in Long Beach to be doing those events.

again that we used to do 30 years ago. I mean, how fun is that? And again, I don't know half of the punk bands that are playing there, but the fact that they want us to be there is exciting. But they all know you. They know us, yes. They all know you. So like right now, it's, you know, if you were to go back,

if you were 25 years old, it's 2026 now, knowing what you know about the restaurant business, what business would you start right now? You know, what I do do now is things with your hands. Okay. Right. I.e. If you're in Newport Beach and you can work on a Mercedes, a Porsche, that's pre-computer chip, you name your price.

Because guess what? You can't just plug in that computer into your car and it goes, what is that noise? You either know what that noise is or you don't. Well, a 3D printer could kind of do. No, yeah. So if you have an old car that doesn't have a computer chip in it, you have to know what that noise is. And only the guys that work on those cars. So to me, that guy is priceless because most people in Newport,

they have an old Porsche or Mercedes, the Bugatti, anything that's old, that doesn't have a chip. A computer can't tell you what's wrong with it. You've got to know it. And once you have one, those guys, that is kind of like your surgeon. You don't want to lose them. You don't want to let anybody else work on your car because that's the only guy you can trust to fix your car. because they know. And the reason I know that is if you have a Harley,

you better have your Harley mechanic on speed dial if you have an old bike. Because I used to have one of those. And I had my guy on speed dial. Because any time something went wrong, my guy could come over and two seconds that he knew exactly what was wrong with it because you have to look at it.

You can't just, you hear it and you know what's wrong. But you can't just attach it to something. It goes, oh yeah, this cylinder or this, you have to know it. So mechanics are priceless right now because, you know, that means their prices are going up. Oh, they're going through the sky. They said I, some of the guys I've bred interviews and I've seen interviews where they're like, yeah, plumbers are going to cost more.

Oh, my God. Yeah. They're going to cost a fortune soon. Plumbers, electrician. Yeah. The trade that we used to make fun of, the blue collars, right? Well, guess what? If you want your tree cut down, you just can't call the internet.

I goes, hey, somebody physically has to come and cut it down. somebody has to lay the cement somebody's got to put your pool in your tennis court so i my buddy of mine that builds all the tennis courts he makes a fortune because people are i'm the best guy and if you want a basketball a pickleball a tennis court in your backyard you're going to have to call me and you're going to pay whatever i charge you pretty much so that's so i would say the trade you can't order on the internet AI is not going to build it for you you need a physical person there what happens when the humanoid robots take that job? It would be interesting to see if, again, they can anticipate because there are certain

things that they can't. They're going to learn. But at a certain point, again, they could be. Like we see the threat of that happening, like plumbers, electricians, AC guys, all those guys. But, you know, I know that the humanoids are trying to figure that out too. Everybody is. But at the end of the day, if you can teach the robot to do it, you.

you're still going to have a job. Yeah. Because the robot can only learn from somebody that's already done it. Okay. Right? They don't know what they don't know until you teach it, right? So the trades are right now going to be a hot commodity until humanoid's take that over. Yeah.

But again, cars. Which is coming after AI. Yes. And then what else? Oh, the car thing too. That's true. Cars, you know, so anything that we can build, food is not that far behind, right? Because you can teach, you know, a robot how to cook.

But at the end of the day, who comes up with a recipe. in the whole thing, humans still have to anticipate. But again, if you can tell a robot what to do, it can do it. But it takes commands. It doesn't have creativity. And this is where we still have an advantage, the creative part. Yeah, it's crazy because you started in this industry way before AI or robots. You were like, before the Jetsons were even talking about it.

Exactly. Yeah. But I've seen it. I mean, I went to an event where they had like a walk. And it looked like a cement mixer, but like smaller, right? But just think of a thing that's just swirl food. So you threw the ingredients in and you threw the sauces in and literally toss the food around. The problem with that is if you don't throw the ingredients in the right order, right?

So it does take a human to understand. And this is the recipe, right? Because you got to throw the protein before the vegetables. So there is a sequence into how the items get in and how the sauces get in. so one little screw up and the food doesn't taste that good right now let me ask you what is like one opportunity that everyone should be in right now i think right now it's so much easier to launch a product on social media right you got an idea it doesn't take a lot of money to test out your idea right so whatever that may be whether it's a physical item a service whatever it is throw

it out on the internet. But I'm watching shows with little kids doing all kinds of amazing things, whether it's in a farm scenario, whether they're cooking something, or they're showing how to build a toy. Remember all these things. So kids are able to make a lot of money at a relatively young age by just being able to share their ideas, right? So I think the internet opens a lot of doors for a lot of different people. So you don't have to have a college degree. You don't have to have a storefront. So a lot of less overhead to launch a new business. And if it gets some traction, then you could choose to go to a brick and mortar or we can just use to expand our online presence. So I see a lot of people doing things online that I don't think would ever work

in the old brick and mortar world, right? So whatever that may be. So I see a lot of new companies and how fast they're taking off because you don't have to go across the country and across the world to look for retailers to sell your idea. You can do it yourself, right? So whether it's a service or a product, doing it online is way, way faster and a lot less risky and expensive. I mean, the amount you can scale

from the comfort of your own home with no inventory now, it would like drop shipping. You don't have to buy anything. He's just like, I'll just use this guy. I'll drop ship and just use my address and creatively market. It's crazy the world of industries and the amount of money that's being generated as a result now.

That's what's causing, I think, a big uproot in inflation, just because money is so easy to make now. Oh, it is. Yeah. So there's a lot of great ideas out there. So you can spend a couple of days instead of two to three years to find out it didn't work, right? So it's much faster to success, much quicker to failure as well.

Now, we've seen like costs really kind of go up as a result. We've seen inflation. Last time you and I talked, we were in a different economic environment. Way different, yeah. So how much has inflation hits your? your menu. It is caused. The issue for us is people that are on a fixed income, right? I'm pretty sure that from two years ago to today, if you just did your normal cost of living, right, let's just use a good number, 10%, right, which is probably way higher than most, right? So if you were

making 30,000, whatever, you could assume you're making, what, 36,000 today, okay? But the problem with that is gas prices recently that went up 50%. So all of a sudden you still have to get to work. So where do I cut? So the obvious is things that I don't really need. Like I'll just starve myself.

I don't need Wahoos. Or I can brown bag it, right? So these are the things. So everybody in my category saw a little 10 to 20% decrease in traffic because the fact that people still need to get to work but you're going to opt out to you know, brown bag it instead of going out to eat for lunch.

Or you might wait an extra two to four weeks to get your hair cut. You might wait two to three more weeks to get your nails done. So everything that you would account on a monthly or six weeks, whatever, everything got pushed out. Well, Supercuts rolled out a monthly membership. I mean, I'm on a monthly membership for my car wash. I'm a monthly membership for Supercuts. Exactly. So the people that figured out the subscription models, right, where they can still make money,

they can count on that, right? Yeah. Because you don't feel guilty because you already paid for it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's already fixed into my budget. Yeah, it's already in. I'm not like I need a budget, but I still live like I'm on a budget.

I know, but the idea is the people that say, well, this is not in my budget anymore. So what is that? Is it a haircut? Is it, you know, think of all the things. Because I can tell you, the women, on the clock, they're still going to get their Botox. They're still going to get the things that they want and they feel they need, right? So there's the need and the want. So do I need it or do I want it, right?

So that's where do people on fixed income? Meredith, what do you have to cut off your budget? First of all, I would like to say, I went to trade school for cosmetology. And one thing we learned is women will always pay for their beauty. Like he said, like they will always get their hair done. They will always get their nails done. Like, AI is never taking that job. Very good.

And then did inflation hit your lifestyle at all? I get tipped more because my checks are higher. That's good. It works for me. But I also don't eat at the restaurants I work at. Yeah. And they probably give you free food, but you're like, I ain't eating this stuff. No, I always take the free food.

It's like I don't have to go grocery shopping because I work in restaurants. Yeah. Good move. Good move. Yeah. So there's certain things like I say, certain trades got affected. Some didn't, right? So it all depends where you are in the spectrum of service.

Now, do you think that AI is going to be used as a tool in restaurant, as a restaurateur? Or do you think it's going to be an opportunity in the business? do you think it's going to be more of a threat to the business? It depends on how you see it, right? Because everything that changes is always like a threat. Because am I going to lose my job? It's going to replace somebody, right? But you've got to welcome changes.

And how do you embrace it by seeing how it can help your business? So at the end of the day, I don't have the exact answer because a lot of people are threatened, especially the hourly employees, right? But they got to remember that there is still the need for the human interaction. That's what this is called hospitality. AI can't do that for you. You can teach you to say hello to your customers, but there's a difference being saying hello

and that smile on a really, you know, like welcoming somebody back. So I'm pretty sure none of us humans are going to become friends with an AI person, but we're always going to be friends with our favorite hair salon, our favorite bartender, our favorite waiter, our favorite host.

Because that smiley, that face, that inner, action, the human connection is what we want when we go out. So we go out of places, jokingly, where everybody knows our name, right? It's true. We want to feel welcome. We want to basically go to a friend's house. So you end up frequenting restaurants, businesses that people know you, and they know

what you like, they know what you don't like, but more important, they treat you like a friend. I have two things to mention on that. Like, Gen Z or Gen Alpha, these new generations, who are not so assimilated to that vibe, right? Like, we, me and you, want to go to our friends' house. Yes, yes. Me and you want to go feel like we're welcome at home. But Gen Alpha just wants to go to a place

and play video games with their friends on Roblox virtually. So they have a virtual or a parissocial relationship with Mr. Beast. They don't know Mr. Beast, but they're like, they know them through content, right? They love them. So like the parisocial element and the virtual realities that these kids live in, You say that, and it's true. But is it true for the next generation?

And how are you, like, how do we combat that in the restaurant world? It's like they're going to order while we do Uber Eats. There's no parisocial relationship. There's no relationship there. They don't know you. They don't need a smile from you. They just carry on. I agree with you.

They're so, they hate talking to people. Yeah. They hate interacting with humans. They're much more comfortable yelling and friendly, whatever, interacting with their phone. or a computer, whatever that may be, right, kiosk. And you're 100% right. But at the end of the day, right, they're going to end up having to go to work in a real scenario.

So once they kind of get out of their ears of just, you know, hiding behind the curtain, right? They're going to realize that they're going to work for humans. As far as I know, your boss is still going to be a human being. Unless they get a job in like a virtual metaverse. Yeah, but yeah. So in that case, right, they're going to go why we need you right because we're in the metaverse it's everything's going to be machines so at a certain point you're going to have to learn those soft skill sets yeah and that's the one

thing this generation doesn't have they don't know how to deal with conflict because as soon as somebody yells at them they're like oh my god i got to get out of here you know because they don't know what to do because computers phones they don't talk back to you they don't yell at you right humans do. So as soon as they figured out that the majority of people that control this world still is older than them, they better learn those soft skills, the interaction with humans. And that's when they're going to be like, oh my God, I should have been doing that a long time ago instead of hiding behind my phone. So I have a question as a father with we got a kid the same age older kids and you still have young ones like me. How are you teaching those soft skills to your kids

who are actively on roadblocks talking to their friends, but you're yelling to someone who's never going to yell back. It's, like I said, it's very hard because they don't understand, you know, because they're like, why do,

why do I have to listen to this person? Why do I? Because in our days, it was expected that your coach would literally undress you, chew you up and down. Yeah. You do that today with 10-year-old? Oh, my God.

That coach is never going to, he'll be in prison. Exactly. You can't, you know, whatever, you know, whatever doing to your our kid. But my generation goes, that's how we talk to the kids. You got to toughen them up.

I got a football coach for my six-year-old. I found him by the grace of God. And he just, he treats, it's like old school football coach. Like, makes them run lines. Exactly. He calls them, they run ladders. Yeah. You know, he yells at them.

I'm like, think, where's this? He's like a saint. Exactly. This is what the kids need. First coach I ever had. And when I found him, like, you know, I literally it was politics to keep my kid on the team. oh, you know, he has a division of my company. Like, he's not going to cut my kid.

Exactly. Like, I got to keep my kid under that rule. Yes. Right? Because it's, even the coaches are soft now. Yeah, they're super soft because, again, there's always one parent there that maybe didn't play sports. I didn't realize that that's what happens in the practice field.

Yeah. It's toughen them up. And I literally across the board, you even touch a kid. And oh, my God, that's grounds to get fired. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. Yeah. You know, we used to get. literally picked up by your neck and go, do you,

you understand what we're trying to win here, right? Yeah. And we're like, okay, coach, we got it. We got it. Now it's a pansy generation. Yes, yes, yes. So they need a little toughened up, you know, a little reality, right? Because nobody's there trying to hurt you.

There's just trying to make sure you understand that we're here to win a game, not just have fun, you know. I do suffer with this a lot. And, you know, I even have this conversation with my kids. Even today, I was like, you know, how many pushups does your coach make you do in the moitai yesterday and this is my six and four-year-old which i'm you know that's why i have i have moitai today after the divinian basketball camp like you're going to go there and they don't play around like you're going to mess around they're

going to make you do push-ups you know you keep doing push and kick you out of the class like that sort of uh strict culture in sports is non-existent so when i find something that exists like that which i'm going to recommend to you it's right by our house both our houses giga kick moitai for the kid the 10-year-old uh you know they're they're they're they're serious. You know, they're like, you mess around, you can kick you, you can do pushups. That's right. We don't care.

No, no, no. I'll kick you in the stomach. Like, so they'll do it. Thank God, do it. Feed them up. Beat them up. It's okay to get hit. But again, it's like the coaching, the softness.

And again, the whole giving everybody a ribbon for just showing up. I'm like, oh, you're not teaching them reality, you know. Yeah. Participation trophies are the biggest joke ever. Absolutely. still the only country that I think that doesn't. And I'm like, come on. And I think the old, like if you play soccer in other countries, not in America, most of it is done in the streets, right? And the dirt, whatever, because it's just a ball and a net. There's really, and marking,

like, here's the out of bounds, whatever, there's not like beautiful grass fields like we have here. You know, in most countries, there is no such a thing because nobody can afford it, you know. So you basically learn, and it's survival, the playground, rules. It's the survival gets to stay on, right? So we need a little bit more of that instead of like, hey, everybody can play. Maybe you should be doing something else if you can't play, right? So I'm all for, yes, we want participation, but at a certain level, you can't have participation in winning. They don't exactly live next with each other, right? Yeah. Winning is winning and the best players have to play, right? But at a certain time goes, maybe this isn't a sport for you, right? But you've got to

figure that out. I mean, I can't get out there. So I, you know, I don't want to yell at the coaches. I don't want to yell at the kids, you know, but at the same time, I'm like, God, I mean, something's got to give. Something's definitely got to give. Yeah. And I think, you know, we are slowly learning and being able to implement these, like me as a father, like trying to bring old school back to new school.

Yeah. Now, let me ask you, this is, you know, if Wahoos were to launch today. Oh, my God. Okay. And you had zero locations. Yeah. Do you think social media, a. alone could build your brand? I believe it depending on who I'm targeting, right? But social media is

the most cost effective word of mouth out there because it doesn't cost you much, right? So if you can get the right people on social media to talk about you and it doesn't cost money, right? So it amplifies. So instead of having one person tell three people to tell three people, whatever, one person could tell a thousand. So it's a much faster way to amplify, but it's a lot of also much faster to die destroy yeah yeah so we have that that donut shop on the beach in newport that went viral you know the one right on on the boardwalk yep yep and it's got a line every day every day wrapped around the building and it's literally just general donuts but it doesn't matter but it doesn't matter it went viral on ticot yeah it went viral and everybody from every

college student from everywhere yeah drives like 50 miles to get this ham and cheese donut that's thrown the microwave yeah yep you know it's not even like toasted it's like totally gross Yeah, but people love it because they saw it and they're like, okay, you know, they're going to try it. We got to get Wahoos to go viral like that. So it's like viral, virality makes businesses pop. Yeah. And we are basically in the middle of all that right now. We got some great guys, you know, my buddy Josh right now.

Influencer that we're going to team up with and create some great content because the magazine days are basically done. TV and radio is mostly for the old generation as well, traditional we call it. So social is the only way to capture the younger generation. And I feel like if you were to bring back the old guerrilla marketing that you did, that put Wahoos on the map, the stickers and all that, there's still a place for that. Outside of getting fined by the city? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

There's still, you know, that branding was legit and it worked. And most recently last summer, a buddy of mine was going on the Good Morning America show in New York City. And he basically said, you got to give me a sticker. And I'm like, why? So I got him a sticker. And the next thing I know he sends me the video, he was the DJ for Sublime. And there he is on Good Morning, National TV. And there's the Wahoo sticker on the board.

And I'm like, holy moly, that's what he wanted the sticker for. So now it resides on his DJ board. And it's seen all over the world. And he always sends me pictures. He just played Petco Park in front of 50,000 people. And there's a little sticker right there on the board. Yeah. I mean, that's an iconic stick.

Yeah. So everything helps. Again, no right or wrong. And as long as people see the image and they basically say, I like Sublime, therefore maybe I'll like Wahoos, right? So it's always the affiliation. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, for me and the way I track our marketing is I don't look at like conversions like nobody, everybody else. I just look at eyeballs. How many eyeballs am I generating a day? Yeah. I like to average about one to one and a half million views a day. Exactly. Like how many of them bought loans? I don't. I don't know. I mean, how many of them got loans? I don't know. How many of them joined the company? I don't know. But I know that I'm hitting my barometer. Yes. And we know that there's a certain conversion rate off of that.

So as long as you're getting that 1.2 every day, you're going to get X on the back side. It is what it is. Yeah. So I'm not like chasing the conversions because that's that number I don't even know how to gauge it. Yeah. But you know as long as, you know. I'm hitting those numbers. Month over month you're up.

Yeah. Every single month. Now, you've made a lot of mistakes. I think we kind of covered one of your biggest mistakes. I don't know if you've had a bigger mistake. What's the biggest mistake you've had since you've launched? You know, I would say, you know, there's a couple of things that kind of like the ones that kind of upset you a little bit is, you know, being trustworthy, you know, of the people that say who they are, you know, in providing the service they're going to do for you, right? So you take it a face-out.

So what you learn from that is referrals. So any more these days, and I tell everybody out there, if you're talking to mechanic, the department, the person, plumber, electrician, whatever it is that they're going to do for you, an ad agency, talk to the people they're doing business with, find out how they're like, what kind of results you're really going to get. Because everybody's going to go, of course, I get X, R, you know, ROI on every transaction, and they're going to go, wow, that seems to be awfully high for that kind of service, right? So then they don't get their references and talk to them behind the scenes, goes, hey,

what is this guy like? Is this a guy that lives by his word, basically say, hey, I'm going to do it for 10, thousand, I'm going to do it for $2. What is the metric here? And does he deliver? Does he under? Does he over? And I like to work with guys that over deliver, right? Because then at the end of the day, they always want to make sure you're happy. And a guy that wants to make sure you're happy, you're only going to be happy to over deliver. So if you're constantly over delivering, because on my side, I always want to over deliver as well, because I want to get that referral for the next gig. So those are the guys that I look for. But yeah, you learn the hard way. There's

Some guys will tell you that they're the best of the best, and you find out they're the worst of the worst, right? So it's a hard lesson to learn, but through the referrals, you're going to find out who they really are. You do over-deliver. One thing I noticed about you, like, you get in the trenches. You do the work. Like, you will be the head chef. Yes. Like, you don't care.

Like, there is no job at Wahoos that you're not, you're too good for. Yep. You get in the weeds. I get in the weeds. Every good CEO gets right in the weeds and does the janitor's job, does the cook's job. And actually, you actually still do the cookstab. You still, that still brings you joy. Well, when we came to your event, I'm out there cooking because I want to make sure everything is perfect.

And I'm like, dude, wing of Wahoos is making the tuna. Yeah. Like, we got to go get the tuna. That was your signature tuna from Hawaii. That was pretty good. Yeah. This is straight up from Hawaii. That's it.

I'm like, this is the best tuna I've ever had. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have some pokey. We're going to make some pokey. Yeah. And we got to do that again. Yeah.

We're bringing it back. We've got to do another event. And, you know, you're always such a good spirit. It's not just the food. It's the vibe with the food. I think a lot of the success of Wahoos is because of you and the vibe that you brought with the food because food is a shared experience. Yep. Yeah.

And you want to be around happy people. You don't want to be there with a grumpy guy that goes, oh, my God, it's Friday night. I'm stuck here behind the grill. It's Friday night. I'm happy to be behind a grill. See, that's a difference. Yeah. What is it that makes you just such a joyful guy?

What do you think it is that like inspires you to be so happy and want to be behind the, you know, the grill cooking for people and, you know, where is that joy coming from? Well, just again, the satisfaction of delivering a great experience. And the fact is you never know who they're related to, right? And recently, you know, there was a young kid that approached me and wanted to, you know, say, I think my dad knows you, that or that, whatever it was. And I'm like, hey, let's go grab lunch and talk. And in the conversation, we find out that he's connected to a bunch of celebrities that I thought, wow, this would be a great, again, together we can do some really fun stuff. And again, without dropping any major names, but we're talking major celebrity guys. And in my head, I'm like, have never taken the chance to go spend time with this kid, I would have never known who else he works with?

And that's where a lot of people don't understand. Like the idea that you're ever going to go to a bar Because you're going to meet somebody The odds of you meeting that person is about zero and none But the fact that you're going to go there to have a good time And make sure your friends are having a good time When you're in that energy That energy attracts people to you

And then all of a sudden guys, girls would be looking at it goes, Wow, that guy's really cool, he's having a great time I need to know who that guy is And all of a sudden you meet people Because you just put out a good vibe and it naturally comes back to you. But when you're putting that negative vibe out there, nobody goes, ooh, that guy is like,

I'm not going to go near that guy. Nobody wants to be around a negative Nancy. No, no, not at all. And so the people that you end up meeting and attracting, everybody rises together. So the possibility of doing more fun stuff just keeps happening because you are a fun person. Now, do you have a mistake that you could recall

that just cost you a fortune? There's been a few. But I would say, you know, if I had to put on one thing, right, promoters in general because they actually don't have anything tangible, they're just a promoter, right? So you tend to learn early on that if you were promised whatever product, whatever service you were promised on a promoter end, try to get it on the front end of the transaction. because once the event is over, the ability to collect on any of those services

are about zero and none because all the leverage is gone because you already delivered your part of it. Yeah. And it's too late for them to do anything about theirs. And they don't hold their word on a lot. And they're like, I'm sorry, things happen. The event didn't make enough money.

Whatever happened, right? You're screwed. And you're like, oh my God, and you promise your family, your friends to be able to do something. And now you're stuck, right? So things like that. So you, again, learn early on.

And there's been a few instances with promoter when we did college trips. And it goes, okay, you know, we're going to get 10 tickets. Everybody's going to go to, you know, on this trip. And when the time came to the event, goes, I'm sorry, we only have two tickets. And you're like, where's the rest of the eight people going to go? Well, I'm sorry. That's all they have to say. And I'm like, well, sorry, this is not going to get these eight people to wherever they're going to go, right?

And it's too late because it's happening. So my job is I should have gotten those 10 tickets the day we signed the contract to make sure my whole team is going to go, right? So you learn that and goes, okay, you learn these lessons, right? You get what you want on the front end. And I would say that's maybe 10% of the people, right? But it just hopefully never happens to you in a way where it's meaningful that you promise your wife, your neighbor, your employee, that they were going to get to do something if they did their part. and now they're sitting there going, what happened? And they're like, I'm sorry.

That's all they have to say. And I'm like, what is that going to do for us right now? Right? Nothing. So you learn. And then you go, hmm, make a mental note. Yeah. Next time I talk to you.

Meredith, you're in the restaurant business. Any time anything sketched like that happened to you? You know, in the restaurant business. Anybody ever left you hanging, hang to dry, I call it, right? They said, oh, yeah, yeah, come over and come. over and get this, right? And you come over and goes, oh, yeah, and by the way, that would be be $100. And I'm like, I would have never came over here if you're going to charge me $100. Like, if you would have told me, right, to come by and get a new sunt 10 or, oh, we're going to do

the tattoo for you because we're going to do a matching one on the other side. And then you get on the table and goes, well, that's going to be $5,000. You're like, ah, uh, uh, right? Yeah. Um, one time, not in a restaurant or anything, but one time a guy was like, oh, let me come over and cook you dinner. And then after you text and he's like, so that steak was $37 just so you know. I thought you're making this for me. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Where'd you mean that guy? Don't go on that. Don't go back there. Because there's a big difference between come over and get something and come over and buy something. Yeah. They're too big, right?

So in my world, I know the difference, right? And you know who the guys are. That literally come over here. You need a pair of sunglasses. Come over here and come. And the next thing you know, goes, well, that'll be 300 bucks. I'm like, I didn't need the sunglasses for 300, right? Yeah, you're like, I thought this was free, but okay.

Yeah, because, oh, we're going to trade services. I was going to make you cocktails, and you're going to make me dinner, right? So there's that quit for crow, right? It's okay. But you know what you're going to give. You know what you're going to get. The communication sometimes comes across as like, oh, yeah, you're such a great girl, and I'm going to do this for you.

And by the way, here's the bill for it, right? Well, this time he was parking in my apartment building's parking lot for like a couple days. he just need his car there to go to San Diego. He's like, I'll make you dinner. So I was like, sure, exchange for it, exchange, and then try to get me to pay. I didn't pay, though. I was like, you just kept your car here. I know.

Exactly, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's those pansy guys we keep talking about, you know, that raising a generation where just like nobody, they're talking to their phone. I know. But the idea is there are people out there. And to me, I'm perfectly, we're all big people, right? It's $100 bucks, $100, a hundred bucks. but let me know that on the front end so I can make that decision, right?

Or not. I say, hey, do I really need that? Okay, hey, you know what? 100 bucks is a great deal because I've been looking at it. Everybody else was going to be two to 300. So 100 bucks is a great deal, right? And I always joke about there is no free lunches, right? So I always say, hey, what else can I do for you, right?

And so that way I don't feel like I'm taking advantage of anybody or any more than I I want to be taking advantage of, right? So there's always like, hey, what's to give and to get, right? Yeah. So everybody's on the same page. Everything's above the board. And are we trading? Are we bartering?

Are we referring? What are we doing here? What is they give and the get? And it's perfectly, okay, we're all adults. And we understand there's no free lunches, right? But the idea that somebody's going to go, oh, yeah, let me hook you up. Oh, by the way, here's $100 or is it $37.50, right? I'm always aware of the guys to tell you, let me hook you up.

Yeah. Now, Wing, I want to ask you, what do you think the biggest opportunity is that people are missing right now? The biggest opportunity right now is the human thing, the networking, because you can have the best idea, the best intention, but going at it by yourself because you don't think you need anybody and you don't think you want to share, right? It's crazy because guess what?

100% of nothing is nothing. 10% of a million bucks is a nice chunk of change. So the idea that you can work with other people, And yes, you still take a chance they might steal your idea, right? But the odds of creating this team helps you amplify and get to success a lot quicker or to failure a lot quicker either way, right? So the idea that you can network with people that can help you grow your business, grow your idea, execute whatever that means, right?

I think it's still a big opportunity that not a lot of people understand. I can be first, I'm a firsthand witness. to how important that is to you because when I go to a masterminds event, you're there. You're still going to every masterminds. You're still like collaborating with people. You firmly believe in the power of human connection. Yes. And you live it and you do it.

And you're an incredible genius networker. You know, you're still charming. You're still always going to network events. You're still like making people laugh. You're still, you believe in that human connection. I do. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, when you get to the third,

top of Mount Everest by yourself and there's nobody there to see that you got to the top, it means nothing, right? It's just like when you go surf by yourself and you got the best wave of your life, but you turn around and nobody saw it, I don't care what you tell your friends to them and never happened because nobody was there to share with you, the experience, right? So the whole idea that you can bring everybody for the ride and you're there when the team won, whatever happened you can celebrate with other people the concerts whatever that is because oh my god that was the best show ever but if nobody was there it's like yeah joe he's selfish

you just didn't want to bother inviting us da da da da and and all of a sudden you're there by yourself and there's no celebration and life is about celebration these moments but you can only celebrate it with people that were there that's right that's right and hopefully more people keep that vibe alive. Now, what's the best piece of advice you would give a young entrepreneur right now? I tell them, you may not know what you want to do for the rest of your life, but start limiting the ones that you don't want to do. It's way quicker. I don't like this. I don't like that. Okay, good. Start checking them off. Until you figure out, I was, hmm, I really like this. Now, how do I make money doing this, right? So get rid of all the luggage, all the access.

figure it out what you don't want to do way quicker that you don't like. And then I like this. Is there a possibility that can make a living doing this? And that's where you're going to find the happiness because we all talked about. If you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work. Yeah. And that's what keeps you so resilient and so, you know, so happy all the time. It's like you really love what you do. You're in the weeds. You're going to these mastermind's events. You're cooking the food. I mean, the founder of Wahoo's Taco cooking the food. That sounds like a movie. It is. It's a great life. I mean, and again, get to do it with some of the most amazing people on this planet. So for me, people say,

hey, I would get to know these celebrities or these musicians. I'm out of your mind. I'm way out of their league. But the fact that I have a passion for my craft, they have a passion for their craft. That's what we meet in the middle. Because they're like, hey, at the end of the concert, it would be nothing like having great food or at the beginning of the concert, right? And that's where we come together. It's a beautiful thing. Now, I'll get you some more coffee, Wayne. Sure. Wing, if you were to put a special message on a billboard today that you wanted to tell the world, what would it say? Get your shit together. Let's go.

That's a great billboard. I like that. I like that. We have a special surprise. We have a special guest calling in. His name is Dominic D'Angus. He's an upcoming chef. And his dream is to open a restaurant like every chef wants to.

And he wants to be a restaurateur just like you. Okay. But he wants to get some practical advice. So he's going to ask you some questions and see if we can help him out. All right. Sounds good. Let's do it. Hey, Dom.

I'm Joe Shelby. I'm your host here for the show. Thanks for calling in. Of course, Joe. Thank you. All right. So go ahead. You got Wing Lamb, the legend himself.

You got his attention. Wing. Yes. How are we doing? This is great because as someone that wants to open their own restaurant very soon. I have some questions, so yeah. Fire away. Let's see. Let's start at the top. First question, well, go ahead. You start or I'll start. Whatever you want to do.

Yeah, yeah. So basically, I became a private chef six years ago. Pretty new to this. But I always was around food in my Italian household. And that was my love for it. But I pivoted careers. And, you know, it's been, it hasn't been easy. But it's like it's going in the right direction finally. And I think it's time to open my first, you know, brick and mortar, as they say. So, yeah, I was just, I was just wondering. So, like, because I have so many questions. Like, mine isn't going to be a restaurant.

I think they call it a fast, casual, high-in lux. Okay. That's like one. Is that the right turn? Yeah. But yeah, I was wondering, you know, what was like the hardest part about like opening your first restaurant that nobody warned you about? I would say that having been in the restaurant my entire life before opening my own was the amount of work outside of making food, right? So payroll, insurance, advertising, all the other functions besides making food.

that you don't think about, that consumes a huge, so for every hour of, you know, restaurant operation, you probably got about a half hour worth of paperwork, I call it, right? So that's one thing. So somewhere in your group, you need to have an accountant type, an HR type, and, you know, like basically an insurance, you know, like a lawyer kind of, you know, just to make sure that you're not going to get sued, right? So you've got to have the human business part of the business in line, which most restaurant guys never think about.

And that can make or break you literally really quickly because if you're not managing your cash flow and following all the rules, taxes, payroll, all that other, you know, the functions, right? It's a big thing. Okay, okay. That's true. Yeah, you're going to have a whole team.

So if you were to build like a fast, casual restaurant brand today, if you started from scratch, what would be your first move? The first thing that I would think about besides, because I already know the back of the rest of the paperwork, right? Because unlike most restaurant chefs, I actually have a finance degree from college. So I'm a bean counter, right? So all my decisions, believe it or not, as crazy as they may sound, there's a financial upside and downside risk that I know, right? So it sounds crazy because people like, hey, you're doing an event. I'm like, yes, but I'm getting paid to do an event. There's a difference between just going out and handing out free tacos on the street corner and getting paid to hand out

free tacos on the street corner. Okay, so that's one. So if you are able to create stories, around social media, right? Give people a reason to come to you. Because what are you doing differently in your end of town that's different than all the other restaurants that are similar to you, right? So I don't know if you're going to do Italian, Mexican, Caribbean. I don't know what kind of food you're going to do.

But whatever that is, it doesn't matter to me, but all it matters is how much different are you than everybody else that's providing something similar, right? So if you can then tell that on social media, people are going to go, oh my God, look at this. I've never seen anything like this, right? So that gives people a reason to try it, right? But then you've got to be able to follow up with it because is it going to be different? Yes.

But now after they try it, why would they come back? Because it was so much better and different than anything out there, right? So that's the key because it doesn't require a lot of money. but if you've got to have some people that can influence the rest of the population to come into your restaurant your ad strategy needs to be on point because right now in the social media world like you you've got to build your personal brand your your food has to have a brand you have a personal brand so your marketing is the crux of everything now yeah and earlier on our show we were talking about how social media could really make or break you your business and your social

media playbook has to just be like, you know, where are you launching? You have to have that ready and dialed and on point before you even launch your restaurant. Yep. And I would say, you know, the one thing I tell all businesses, not just restaurant people, specifically guys are like dentist, accountants, people that study a specific skill set, a chef, right? Nobody fails because they're bad at what they do. It's like most restaurants close because they have bad food. In relative terms, all restaurants have really good food.

The reason they fail, they can't get people in the doors. Yeah. Yeah. Marketing. Yeah. Marketing and branding. What is your food type, by the way, that you're going to launch for Fast Cash? So I, let's just say it's a sandwich shop. It's a type of sandwich shop.

Like, I'll give you an example. Our friend Ike from Ike's sandwiches. Did a great job. And he did a great job in what? The sandwiches are good, but he did a great job building his personal brand. Oh, yeah. I've been to several L.A. parties,

and he has his sandwiches there, and he has his cutout himself. So one thing that I does really well, which he talked about earlier, Wing did, was networking, building his brand and networking. Wing said one of the most powerful things is networking, because it doesn't really cost anything.

wing till this very day is at every mastermind's event. And you know what else is at every mastermind's event? Ike. Ike's there. So we know him really well. But I'm giving him as an example because he built a personal brand around him and his sandwiches. I'm definitely going to be the outgoing person in the business. Yeah, because you got to be.

You got to be. Networking is a big part of your success because, you know, when you get with all the other masterminds in the industry, They're going to give you insights that you never even thought existed. I'm not even a restaurateur. I just know what I know from talking a wing and being a consumer, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to say. And a brand enthusiast. There's another sandwich guy in our end of town that you got to look at. And I've been busting his chops for, I want to say, probably maybe almost 20 years. And you can Google it. It's called Sessions. S. Yeah, Matt.

Yeah, Matt. So the same thing. I used to joke with him that it goes, you have a. made it until you drive a branded vehicle. So he made it his mission to get a little sprinter van that was branded with sessions on it. And then he drives to my house and goes, you see, I made it. I'm like, okay. And his stick is he makes great sandwiches, but he does a lot with the life guards, right? Because his original story is literally five minutes from my house at the beach. So he constantly does stuff with the life guards and that's his little stick. Like, after

you're surfing before surfing, you know, very much like what I did with Wahoos. The difference was he was much closer to the ocean. He's a block away from the ocean where I'm a more about a mile away. Now he's a different state. Yeah. Oh, he's in different. Yeah, he's in the, but what Matt's talent was, he didn't mention Matt was a promoter.

That was his gift. Oh, yeah. He was a promoter. So were you. Yeah. You know, you guys promoted first. So that's a gift. You've got to be a major promoter.

That's a major advertiser. That's how you make it. There's no, you can have a crappy sandwich. still make it. And there's all types of use cases like that, especially in like, you know, desserts. Yeah. You've got all types of crappy food and crappy desserts that are just famous. Yeah.

Just because they got great promotions. Great promotion. We're talking to investors, and I just don't know if I'm going to go that route yet. Or before get it, you know, a standalone store, maybe a food truck to try it out. But I don't know if that's the right move. Maybe I should just go right in. to the store. I would say that the reason not to go into a store is because of the overhead,

you're going to be stuck for at least a five-year lease that you don't want to be involved at. I would say even before a food truck, because the food truck's going to still cost you about $100,000 anyway, I would get into, you know, like you were doing before, private tier, start and getting people to order, you know, especially offices and just become more, instead of a private chef, more of a private caterer and get that going. and then build that and then all of a sudden start a store. Hey, I appreciate the call in.

We got a run. We've got a hard stop in a couple of minutes, but we'll get your info. We'll stay in touch with you. Thank you guys. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, great talking to you.

Great meeting you. We have a fun segment. You're going to love this segment. All right. What do I get to do next? Something you've never done before on air. Okay, we are going to blindfold you right now. And I promise we won't do anything bad to you.

Okay. These are nice blindfolds. You look very nice. Yeah, look at this. This is quite chic. He's going to take a bite and he's going to have to guess which one is Waho's tacos. Oh, I'm not that good. Okay, there's three tacos in front of you.

You're going to take a bite of each one and tell me what to have each one? I'm about to make a mess right here. This is the guy for you're all Catawampus. There you go. There is sauces. There is sauces. That one. Yeah.

Okay, here's the first one. Put your hands over. There you go. Okay. It's good. I did have a walk of chocolate earlier. but I'm gonna know. Okay, this one is number two.

Mm. They all look pretty good. Yeah, you have an advantage. You gotta seat them first. It's okay. That one was pretty good, though. And you had to do beer battered? Like, how am I gonna know?

That's Wahoo. No. No? Yeah, oh, not you. You almost put in your coffee cup. Dipping a taco coffee. The third one. Oh, then it was the first one.

Yep. You take your flintful off. Those are all really good though. They're all really good. Yeah, except the second one. That was like, it was good, but you get, I'll see. But we're gonna switch them up.

Yeah, I can't see it. They're all good though. Next week. But at the end of the day, they're all good fish tacos. They're all good, yes. Okay, there we go. All right, there we go. They'll pull it around so it's not for a second third.

Okay, put your hands out. This one's gonna be the first taco. Here you know. So, went to the first taco. tacos. He's a chef. He makes me hungry just watching them eat. Okay, number two.

Number two? That's it. Wow. That's it. That's them an applause. Good job, Wayne. You know your tacos. I don't like tacos.

The vans and this. I mean, I got right in the second try, so that's cool. Yes. Walhoos and Coastal Grilled fish hump up. Okay, so the coastal girl fish taco is a thorough because Rubio's, we know that flavor. Yeah, yeah. Boring. Yeah, the last one was pretty good, yeah.

Yeah. Which taco do you think tastes freshest? You know, it's one of those things about tacos. I never put anybody down because I love tacos. So whether they're my competitors or mine, I tell everybody, just go out and eat fish tacos. They're great. God bless you for your answer.

Which taco would you order again other than yours? I probably ordered the last one. Yeah, that's the coastal fish taco. Yeah, that was pretty good. That was a good one. Yeah. And you obviously knew which taco is Wahoo's. Any, would you critique Wahoos at all?

Like, what would you do to make it better? Nothing. I mean, like I said, simple fish with a little bit of, you know, slah on top, a little bit of the cream sauce. It's perfect. It was amazing. Yeah. I love your tacos.

Thank you. Now, Wing, what do you think makes a Wahoo's Taco unique? The fact that we use Wahoo. No other fish taco place in America, if not in the world, uses Wahoo. That's some of the best fish on the planet. Yeah, it's the best fish on the planet. So we, wild caught, we're the only ones they use it. We're the largest buyer of Wahoo in America.

That's the difference. The best fish. And those of you who don't know of Wahoo, that is a hard fish to catch. Absolutely. Very hard fish to catch. Hard to find. Yeah, hard to find. You get them from Hawaii only?

No, we get it from Fiji. Fiji, even better. Even better. Do you think I got a pretty sophisticated palette or I need to try some more tacos? You need to eat some more tacos. Wayne, thank you so much for coming on today's show. If people want to learn more about what you're doing or talk to you or meet you or get some counsel from you, how can they find you?

You can email me, wing.com. Wing.com. Guys, he gave you his email. Reach out to him. Thanks for jumping on today's show. It's always a pleasure. I look forward to having you back in a couple years, see what you're doing, making the Thrifty's Empire global again.

Absolutely. Bring him back low-cost ice cream. Let's go. All right. Let's do this.