Noob School - Episode 64: Carl Sobocinski of Table 301 Restaurant Group

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Today on Noob School, John speaks with Carl Sobocinski, founder and president of Table 301 Restaurant Group. They discuss Carl's resilience when faced with the many challenges posed by the pandemic, and shed some light on the workings of the restaurant industry, and much more. I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School. John Sterling here. I've got a friend for, I want to say, 35 maybe years. 30 years plus? Make me feel old. Well, I mean, since we're 10, a good, solid 30. Carl Sobysinski.

Carl is a good friend to many in this community. And over a career, several decades of a career, he's built up the nicest restaurants in the city. I think you've got six or seven right now? Sounds about right. We've got six plus you've got the oyster bar coming, right? Oyster bars coming and catering and event venues. And when is the oyster bar roughly? January 3rd.

And am I going to get a VIP invite because I love oysters? Of course. Okay, good. I'll go for the record. All right. If I set the record on opening night, I will at least have it for one night. You think six dozen? I think you're going to have to go seven.

Seven? Yeah. All right. So Carl, you know, for the noob schoolers out there, Carl grew up in New Hampshire. Here we are in South Carolina. Carl grew up in New Hampshire and decided to come to Clemson, as I recall, because A, you had a cousin here, and B, they have a good architecture program. Is that correct?

Most of it, yeah. I wanted to get out of the cold New England winters. And I thought I wanted to be an architect. So I looked at some schools in the southeast with architecture programs. And I also wanted to try to play baseball, see if I could play at the Division I level. So we drove on to Clemson's campus, and it felt like home. I grew up in Durham, New Hampshire, which is a college town, University of New Hampshire. Very similar college feel and look and architecture of the campus buildings.

So we just felt right at home. And I ended up coming down here and played a couple of fall seasons on Clemson's baseball. team as a catcher behind three guys that got drafted. Wow. And studied architecture. And then I've done nothing with it except sketch out some restaurant designs. Yeah. Did you do the initial designs for camp?

I did. That's pretty cool. Yeah. It's fun. All of them I just take the basic floor plan and then start sketching out where each component of the restaurant should be. Very nice. Very nice.

So as I recall, you studied architecture, but while you were in school, maybe the last couple of years, you started working in a Mexican restaurant in Clemson? I worked at Kiwi Ki, the country club. Los Hermanos is where I used to hang out and drink a lot of margaritas. Okay, okay, okay. Well, I was in the ballpark. So you worked at a higher-in restaurant at Kiwi-Kee. That's right.

And there, you got the bug to be in the service business. Yep. How did that happen? I think I learned some of the best lessons right there in the beginning. I had never worked in the restaurant, so I started out busing tables and worked my way up the front of the house all the way into a management position. But what was cool about working in a club was Rick and Dick Ford owned the real estate there, and they were trying to sell real estate.

So they would coach us and teach us in the restaurant that, you know, we were there to try to sell real estate as well. And at first, when the 19, 20-year-old kids hears that, you're like, I don't understand how am I selling real estate. but it was about the experience that they would get when they were dining and how we could elevate the feeling that they had in that property and around the lake. And so essentially, I learned a pretty young age, or at least early on in my career in the restaurant business, that we were selling the entire time. Interesting. So that's the first official exposure you had to what selling was and what people were trying to do

when they sold. And they were using the restaurant. to sell the property. Yeah, so folks that were coming in were from the Midwest, from the Northeast. It's probably similar to me trying to escape the cold winters. And then we had beautiful Lake Kiwi that was very underdeveloped at the time. One of the only properties that you could buy was that Kiwi Key. And so these folks would tour property all day and they would probably fall in love with

the property, but then start to wonder, well, what do we do when we're here? And if they could come in and have a wonderful dining. experience and be made to feel important. And, you know, we remember their names and their favorite things. Then it became all part of the package. That's awesome. And so how long did you do that? So I did. I worked there for about three years. Okay. After, after college too? After college for about a year, year and a half. And after college, I went into the back of the house to learn line cook, prep cook. I became a banquet, sous chef. And so I learned. So, you know, I truly can say I've worked in every aspect

of the restaurant. And, you know, now to this day I can identify the pressure points on any given day or night and know where my hands are going to be most useful at whatever part of the night it is. And how would you know which restaurant to drop by and check on? Do you know, like which ones may be struggling more than another one? Um, you know, I try to pop into each of them on occasion, but I know that you can never let the foundation that got you there slip. And so I spend the majority of my working nights in Sobies. Just always go back to where it all began. Um, and then just trusting that each of the other restaurants has a solid team.

Yeah. And we do more daytime coaching and mentoring with those. with those folks at the other stores. I gotcha. Okay. So you stayed on, were you hatching the 858 plan while you were working there? So I, uh, or missed something. Yeah, no, I think I had completely removed myself from Kiwi Ki,

and I was actually selling real estate during the day. Okay. And then creating the business plan and the model for, for the 858. Okay. And so, you know, some of our people will remember the 850s. But it was so far ahead of its time. It's so far ahead of its time that if you brought it out now, now is probably about the right time for it. I mean, it was so cool.

You know, you'd enter the first floor and you'd have to take the elevator up, which kind of added to the drama of the whole thing at rickety elevator. And then just a bustling second floor, just absolutely bustling. And then like the disco on the third floor, right? Yeah, up on the top floor. we used to do a funky Friday. Funky Friday nights. Disco ball, a stage, and warm beer. Oh, man, that was great.

That was great. Yeah, we, that helped me with my business because all those young sales guys and girls, they just... Again, it was a way to help sell Greenville that you had. Downtown was starting to evolve. Yeah. Yeah. You had more places for people to go and be entertained.

Well, it was, it was great. I mean, Greenville gives you the hot dog king and look what you give it back in return. How about that? Pretty good deal. So that must have been tough. You were mid-20s, and you started this, it was a big restaurant. I mean, a three-story building complicated.

How did you pull that off? I think, like anything else, just sheer determination and belief that, you know, you don't know how to do something. You ask the right people, figure it out. And when you do make a mistake, don't repeat it. Yeah. Learn from it. So we just, there was a lot of hard work and a lot of extra hours that went into getting

things done and learning the right ways to do things. But we started out. One of the things that really helped us starting out was we were two kids that graduated Clemson and then a chef that was a little bit older that came in from Atlanta. But Todd King, who I teamed up with and did the project with, he owned the building. And his family was a. established in Greenville, and so they had some good relationships that we relied on and we learned a lot from their people and their family, and they became the original customers, and they were

talking about the place. So, you know, Greenville's business community was coming out and supporting it from day one. Yeah. Todd King, okay, so you went into business with a family that owned the building and wanted to have that kind of place downtown. Yeah, I think Todd's initial, he bought the building and he turned a third floor into a condo, a downtown condo, and he and his wife lived there. And I just happened to walk through the building with him one day. And I think I got lost on the second floor and they were up third or fourth floor looking around and came back to figure out what I was doing. And I said, this looks like it used to be a restaurant or something. What was this? And he said, it was the old Elks Lodge. And this is where they had their dining room and their kitchen.

And I said, well, I want to open a restaurant. Let's, can I do it in here? He said, let's figure it out. Wow. Wow. So, and then right across the street from them was another mutual friend, Mike Goot, had his ad agency. I think at the time they were called icing Goot. And they looked out at that building every day. And when they saw some activity, somebody came across the street and said, what are you doing? We're going to do a restaurant. Oh, my gosh, we would love to help brand it.

So that was how I was introduced to Mike and his company. and they branded that restaurant for us in 93, and it's company that he's now sold and it's brains on fire, but they've branded everything since. Yeah. So, okay, let me think about it because I know, 858, was that the dress? That was the, remember it was the old Elks Club, and they were lodge number 858.

Oh, okay. All right, all right. And then Sobe's, obviously, I get that one. Yeah. Did he do Southern Press, did they? That was after Mike. No, they actually. Mike was gone, but Brains on fire, Robin Phillips and the rest of the team.

Okay. Okay. Interesting. Passarell, that's a good one. That's the French word for bridge. The foot bridge, right? We're right there. Passerle's right there at the entrance way to the living here.

That's one of my favorites, you know. Yeah, Michael does a great job there. So that's one of the first of the bridge. of them that we actually have sold to Michael Monelli, the general manager and his wife. I remember talking to you, Carl, you probably don't remember. I'm probably one of your, you know, 200 best friends, but I remember talking to you one day about 15 years ago. I think we just sold our business. And you said, what's it like, you know, and I might sell my business one day. We talked about that approach about, instead of like trying to sell the whole thing,

It's like finding your key people and doing them when it's appropriate. And I never forget what you said. He said, well, if I do sell them, said, do you think they'll still let me come by and, like, help out? I mean, that's what I knew you were like in the perfect job for what you do. You'd like doing it. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I'm one of the lucky ones. I still get up every day and enjoy going to work, being around the people.

Saturday night, I was on the Expo line at Sobies, and I was just telling Michael out there. I just, I love being there. planning my feet there and being there for four or five hours. And you just, you get a charge out of it by the end of the night. Like, how many people do we do? Yeah. Five 50. Wow.

That was cool. Yeah. I just did a good job. That's great. So let's take them through from eight, how long did you have 858? So I was part of that for about two and a half years. Okay. And then, like I said, I learned a ton of lessons there.

I learned the business side of things, the financial side, the market. side, not everything, but I learned enough to maybe be dangerous. And it was just time for me to step away and do it, do it a little bit differently. As I mentioned, it was Todd, myself, and a chef, and I learned one of the lessons was partnerships of two were easier than partnerships of three. So when I went down to Sobies, I knew that I didn't know the culinary side. So I teamed up with David Williams, and he was the chef and handled the back of the house, and I ran the front of the house.

And if we disagreed, which we did often, like any relationship, we just agreed to disagree and, okay, we'll go your way today, John, and tomorrow we'll go my way. But it was a good partnership, good relationship. We've parlayed it into multiple concepts. A few failures, a few lessons learned along the way. You went from, well, here's one thing on that point. with my old partner, same thing.

You know, we would fight about things, like disagree. And we would, we were, we'd both get a little angry back, you know. We finally got a third-party consultant in, you know, to kind of ease it. And I never forget talking to this guy, just individually. And he goes, he goes, so when you argue with him, because you have a strong opinion around that, I go, yeah, he goes, you think you're right? I'm like, yeah. And he goes, are you all?

always right. And I was like, well, no. I guess I'm not always right. And it really helped me to become more flexible after that. It's kind of like marriage counseling. I guess so. Right. Not that we've ever seen that before. Yeah. I hear that's what it's like. Allegedly from a friend. Allegedly. That's right. Okay. So 858 to Sobes, which is the jewel. That's the one, The big one, the main one where you do most of your work now. What's the sequence after that? So we opened, so some of them aren't there anymore, but we opened Sobies on the side. Yeah, which I loved.

In 2001. Do you remember when I thought the maple syrup was olive oil for a while? I was putting it on my sandwich. I was like, this is the sweetest olive oil I've ever had. I was like gaining a pound a day. So anyway, they laughed at me about that for a while. Oh, my goodness. Gabe Kapler used to come in there when he was managing the Greenville Drive,

went on to still managing in the show now with one of the major league teams. He would bring his own peanut butter. I was like, Gabe, if we have peanut butter, he's like, no, I've got to have my peanut butter, but I love your bread and everything else that goes on it. It was funny. Yeah, the stories, the olive oil and the maple syrup. That was good. So we did sobies on the side in 2001 and had a good almost 12,

20-year run, but we closed that during the pandemic. Doing breakfast and lunch, that was the one that suffered the most with that in catering. But we shut that down, and that is what we're getting ready to open January 3rd, Jones Oyster Company. And that'll be pretty cool that I mentioned Brains on Fire. Greg Ramsey, part of that team. He's also an artist. We found some old pictures of the building from the 30s when it was called the Jones Furniture Company. And so he recreated the Jones Furniture Company sign and painted it on the building. And then we'll just over the top of furniture, we'll put the Oysters neon sign. Good.

The Jones Oyster Company. Can't wait. Yeah. And then from there, we opened Restaurant O, which we again had a nice run, but we closed that during the financial recession in 0809. And just kept it closed, really just retooled it into what's now the nosedive. and that is going on 10 years or 11 years. As that concept, I guess it would be 20 years coming up next year from O and the nosedive. Lazy Goat was next down in your neck of the woods.

We just turned 15 down there this past summer. That's one of the best views in Greenville. It's amazing. That second floor, that ballroom upstairs and the views of the Peace Center and the performing arts and the river. Yeah, it's pretty special. The mayor likes to entertain up there because he can, at lunch or dinner, he can be pointing out all the different things that have happened over the. Good. Over the, how many years has Knox been, 40, 50 from our mayor?

I mean, it's the longest mayor we've had. I think so. He might be giving Joe Riley a run for his money from down in Charleston. I hope he doesn't leave for a long time. It's been amazing transition during his tenure. He's patient. He's a patient planner. So then we did, I'll probably get them out of order, but we did Pappies tacos.

Yes. And Pazarel, the bistro, and then Giana. I think Southern Presidency before Giana, then Giana, and now camp. And you have sold Pappies. Yep. And Giana, right? Yeah, so Pappies, Giana, and Pazerl have all been sold to the managers, the chefs. and that's probably the thing that I'm the most proud of

and probably get the most choked up about is going back to that conversation that you and I had about when you sell. When you have a unique restaurant group or probably any kind of a group in any business, that's all unique product lines, it's a little different and more difficult to sell it to somebody than if you took a fats cafe. them as a local example. They built up 30 fats and sold it to a big group.

And you can just take that one playbook and replicate it. We have 15 different playbooks. Culture, philosophy, hospitality, those don't change in any of our brands. But each chef has autonomy to do what they want with the menu within the confines of the concept. But yeah, we have a Mediterranean concept, a French bistro, a southern. low country cuisine, you know, place. We've got the gastropa, we've got Italian, we've got the plant-based juice bar. So everything's different. That's difficult for one person or one group to manage. So in looking at a possible exit strategy, I realized, so a couple of things happened.

I mentioned this on numerous occasions, but I was very fortunate to be chosen to participate in Liberty Fellowship. So I did that and then when I was 44, 45, and that was a very reflective time and really gave us the foundation to take a deep look inside and see how we wanted to be involved in community and in our state and what issues and things did we want to be involved in to help promote and further challenges in our state. And then at 50, I'm sure everybody at 30, 40 and 50 has some sort of an inflection point. And at 50, I had another one of those. And I just started thinking about what is the exit strategy,

how fortunate I am to have all these people working in our company. And some of them would like to have the same dream that I had years ago. And people certainly helped me get to where I was. And I want to do what I really like to do with my time these days is things that that I consider more impactful. And so chairing the United Way this year and being more involved in some of the issues that are facing our community that are challenging, coming up with solutions to affordable housing, transportation, again, some of the challenges.

So yeah, I like to dedicate some of that time. And so one of the thoughts was, well, let's see if some of these managers and chefs that want to own a restaurant truly want to own a restaurant and come up with a plan. to sell them to them and knowing that most of them probably aren't bankable themselves. So we've got something that's established. They've been a part of the team. They've helped us get it to a successful point, pay off the original investment that went into it.

And now let's come up with a number that is good for both of us and owner finance it. So we've done that three times. It's pretty cool concept. It's got to feel good because you've given people. several of which that I've gotten to know, you've given them a chance to not just work at a restaurant, but to own a restaurant. And if they want to expand from there, they can. But you've helped them do that with the owner financing and all the training and everything you gave them. So it's wonderful.

We love to go to Pappies. That's the closest. Well, that's the second closest. Lazy Goat's closest to me, but we go to Pappies a lot. And love George. You know, and that's that whole story is just a great, you know, the American dream. story. Tell the story. This is Pappy's in the whole family, right? Yeah, so we call him Pappy because they're both Jorge, George, him and his son. And Poppy Sr. came to work for us on day one at Sobe.

So back in November of 97, he was one of our first employees was there opening night, started out as a porter, washing dishes, learned a couple more. more skills, started making the biscuits. Sobe's biscuits are kind of famous. We tried to take them away one time when we had a bakery. People screamed and we brought him back. Poppy took over that. Then he became a kitchen manager, great prep cook, managed the day-to-day daily kitchen at Lazy Goat. But every Saturday, when he was at Sobe's, every Saturday, one of the different cooks so chefs would make a family meal. And every time I'd walk through the kitchen,

if Poppy made it, they always said, you got to go try Poppy's food. He made enchiladas today. He made tacos. And it's all, it was family recipes and called it Mexican street food. And so I used to look at him when I walked by. I was like, Poppy, this is good.

You and me one day. Poppy's tacos. Okay, sir, yes, sir. And his son came to work for us in his teens. And so, yeah, they're still working together. We finally opened Poppy's tacos. and we said we're not going to turn this over and just give it to you without it being able to sustain. You keep working with us and keep earning your salary and when it gets to be the right time, we'll do that.

So we did. It got to be the right time. We felt like the sales were going the right direction. He was understanding it. So, yeah, the family runs it now. They're looking at opening their second store. It's just a great story. Wonderful story. And the nicest people.

The nicest people. That's great. So they were there on opening night. That's cool. So let me ask you this. I think that's great what you're doing, obviously, giving people those chances. And the funny thing about you, Carl, is, you know,

as you're giving people these chances and, you know, getting these things off your balance sheet and, you know, somebody, you're opening new restaurants. I mean, are you trying to just kind of stay even or what are you doing here? Well, the good news is with any, the last three that we've opened, I've only done them because I had somebody internally that wanted to watch this process. The same kind of deal. The same process. So they'll come in 10, 15, 20 percent.

Yeah. Some buy in, some sweat equity. Yeah. And then we'll kind of go through the same process. So you have a process now. Yeah, I don't, I've told everybody, I don't want to do another restaurant without one of you, you know, in the room at the table. Well, I want to drill down something a little bit different. I mean, during, we'll call it the pandemic or COVID or whatever it was, I mean, I have never seen leadership like I did from you.

I mean, I don't know how you knew how to do all that stuff. I mean, my business was selling software, right? We were selling the warehouses. We were fine. We had to work from home. That was about it. I mean, you had the government come out and say, don't open and don't go there. And yet you were the one out there sending a day.

email, you know, sharing with people what the heck was going on. And some of that had just be your opinion, which is kind of dangerous. Yeah. How'd you do that? It's, you know, when, when, like you said, when the government said, you have to close tomorrow or whatever. I mean, we had 400 employees. Yeah. And so there was a lot of people freaking out. Yeah. And so I, I just knew that for whatever reason I wasn't freaking out. I had in 2008 and 09, I was stressed and didn't know how we were going to get through it. 9-11 didn't know if people would ever fly again, if people would come into the restaurants and whatnot. So we'd been through a couple of crises and learned our way a little bit.

And for whatever reason, this one just felt like, wait a minute, this isn't just something happening in Greenville and South Carolina. This is global. So there's a lot of smart people out there. They're going to figure this out. It might be a little bit of pain, but I'm just going to communicate and talk to the team and let them know that there are some resources to help out. Three or four of us would sit in the front of the Sobe's building during the day

and invite team members in. Like, hey, if you're having trouble paying the utility bill or paying this bill or don't know what to do, just come see us. We'll help you with the unemployment filings. will help you try to get some car payments deferred until the end. And so we were just able to help folks with that. The emails that you refer to, they just started out really being internal. And then a couple folks on the team said, you really should just share that.

So our team just kind of sent them out and shared them with our database, people that were like to hear from us occasionally about special events and whatnot. Well, obviously this was more than a special event. and people had a lot of time, so I guess they read them. But it was, if I sat down tomorrow to try to write one of those, it wouldn't flow. During that period of time, it was very divine. Yeah, it was. I just woke up in the morning and I just felt inspired and the words just kind of flowed.

Well, it showed true leadership because it would have been easy to duck the conversation. right I mean because everyone was ducking it yeah and so and then also to say some things that just were your opinion about what might happen what might happen I mean put yourself out there and all your friends and customers really appreciate it it was good it was I feel like it was the right thing to do I've never really been one to shy away I don't you know I don't put political beliefs and stuff on the front door but I'm also not afraid and we don't need to go down all the way down this road. But when we wanted to have a glass of wine or a Bloody Mary on Sundays and we weren't allowed to,

most of the industry was afraid to go out in front. And I said, well, it's never going to get changed unless somebody does. And if a few people don't want to come into the restaurant because I felt it was the right thing to do, then so be it. So, you know, I was a guy going door to door trying to get people to say, we should be able to have a drink on Sunday. I know, and certainly we should. We should.

We absolutely should, and we do now. Thank goodness, and we can do it on the sidewalk too. That's right. Right? Thanks to you. Well, again, thanks for all you do for Greenville. It's much appreciated, and you're still doing it. That's the wonderful thing.

Appreciate that. my only the only thing I did during the pandemic was I went to Southern Press a lot I figured you know that drinking all that juice had to be good for me it's undeniable

yeah it didn't hurt it's my favorite well let's finish up with a couple more questions the first one is what's your favorite word oh goodness I bet if you asked my children or my wife, they'd give you three different answers because I have a lot of them. But I think from what we're talking about, impact or impactful, is one that I use a lot at work.

And, you know, I tell our team, you know, if we're going to do something, it has to be impactful. We're going to make a difference. And we're not going to just, you know, like you said, we could have ducked and skirted the whole conversation and stuff. but you don't achieve success and you don't get places without taking on the challenges and the difficult topics. So for me, and I mentioned serving on United Way this year as chairman, Greenville is wonderful. And we all read the top fives and the top tens and the things that the accolades that we get and all the people that want to come here. But truth be known, we're also on. some top five lists that we should not be proud of and we don't talk about those things.

And so part of my job this year, my goal was to actually talk about some of those things and advocate. And the only way we're going to get better and be impactful is if we talk about them and then we come up with solutions together. So, and just quickly I'll share that a lot of people don't know that we are, Greenville County is one of the top five most difficult counties in the United States to ride out of poverty if you're born into poverty. That is unacceptable. All this wonderful downtown, the jobs that we create, the beauty, the condos, the river, the parks, it's all great, but not

everybody is enjoying it or benefiting it. So we have affordable housing issues. We have poverty issues. We have racial equity issues and we've got to address those. So you started out asking about my favorite word. I'd say impactful is that's what I want to be and that's what I want to encourage my team members, you know, to everything that they do to try to be impactful and make a positive difference. That's a great word. Is it a United Way?

Is there anything else you want to promote while you're here? You know, United Way is one of many. organizations that are, you know, working to better our community. What I love about the new direction of the United Way is for 20 plus years before I became a board member, I contributed and I knew that they were doing a good job of dispersing funds and helping a number of different organizations. I would say that now over the last five, six, seven years, and not just our United Way, but United Way is globally, have gotten a little more. focused and gotten into a lane of what they want to promote and where they want to be impactful.

And so what I think, I think United Way has done a great job here in our community about focusing in on this issue of poverty, racial equity, economic mobility, and trying to, trying to move the needle there. So, you know, what I would love to promote is that people continue to give to the United Way. And if you haven't given in a little while for whatever reason to ask me or one of our team members at United Way to come out and talk to you a little bit about the goals and the mission and see if we can get folks back on board giving because it's going to make a difference the work that the United Way is doing. Is there any chance of getting any kind of disco or disco ball back in one of your places? I think so. I mean, why not? I think we should do it. I think, you know,

we've got the avenue. Yeah. Beautiful spot. up on the top floor of the Irwin-Penland building. We should have a pop-up disco. You know, we're just having an email list and send it out, give like 24 hours notice. Yeah, maybe we could get that done at the well. I could just bring everybody into the well and drop a big couple disco balls in there. Yeah. But nothing better than Funky Friday, though.

It was great. It was great. This was great, too. I appreciate you coming out here. I know you're busy, busy guy with all you got going on, but thanks for coming. and hopefully some of our stories or your stories will help these folks as they navigate their careers. So thank you. Thank you.

I'm honored to be here. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, John. All right.