The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Strictly Restaurants Provides Top Tier Restaurant Accounting and Consulting

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Strictly Restaurants Provides Top Tier Restaurant Accounting and Consulting Strictlyrestaurants.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com. Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast.

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He's on the show with us, Jeff Lavelle from Strictly Restaurants. He's here to talk to us about his business and what they do and how they do it and give us an inside look into the whole sort of operational aspects of restaurants which is topical right now because you know a lot of businesses are trying to keep things going and employment's kind of an interesting place right and Jeff is coming to us he spent 24 years in the hospitality industry as a restaurant controller prior to opening strictly restaurants his immense success is attributed in part to his detailed work experiences in various positions within the restaurant industry and a strong

financial background. Jeff and his family previously owned and operated their own restaurant deli for several years. His last full-time position as CFO controller was with French chef David Boulet, which led him to start Strictly Restaurants thereafter. As being an industry insider, he has come to understand what each position and individual brings to the success or failure of a restaurant. Welcome to the show, Jeff. How are you? Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you. Very well. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having us. Thank you. It's awesome to have you as well. Give us your.com so people can find you guys on the interweb.

Sure. They can find us at www.strictlyrestaurants.com. They can find us. They'll find information about the partners who we work with, up-and-coming events, anything that's on price coming down, and they'll look to see if the team on there as well too. There is an info page. They can go on there, click on there, put their information in, and it will come to my email, and certainly by all means, I'll reach out to them.

All they can call me on my cell is 646-320-5206. There you go. There you go. There you go. So who and what is Strictly Restaurants and Hospitality Services? Strictly Restaurants came about as it is the name Strictly Restaurants. My career has been since I was 12 years old, I've worked in the restaurant industry and worked in every position from back of the house. And there's many positions at back of the house from a steward, prep, line cooks, chef, and so on to a grill man. I worked in the front of the house. I worked in

delis. I pushed hot dog carts. I worked in high-end restaurants. I worked at Denny's. I was a waiter at the diner in Norristown. And I'm up to, as you said, as you wrote to my own business that I had a deli restaurant back in the 2000s. I worked in every position, actually in the back of the house, in the front of the house, and then I worked in the office. And it was by my knowledge from being in the back of the house and being on the floor in the front of the house, it allowed me to be successful starting out in accounts payable. And then I worked from doing accounts payable to being a staff accountant. And then literally I made it from being a staff accountant to a controller

for Gladstones Universal there at the California Studio Park, Studio City. I've come to years of being in this position as a controller, CFO. And as you said, my previous full-time position was with David Bollet. I said, you know what though? I've got to get out there. There are many restaurants out there, large and small, mom and pop businesses, multi-unit operations that need my services. And when you work for a company, it's funny, the back of the house is viewed as an expense. You're really not viewed as an asset because you cost money, right? So you have to turn around and show the restaurant operators that you can bring value. And bringing

value is by knowing everything from, like I said, from every position, everything that comes through, what is the ideal cost should be of a concept? What are you looking for in margin? One time, a gentleman asked me, when you're looking at a P&L, what do you look at? And I said, I can't give you a straight answer to what I'm looking at. I could be looking at a percentage, I could be looking at a dollar amount. That does make sense as I'm looking at this particular restaurant. So Strictly Restaurants was, like I said, if you would, came about almost nine years ago, January would be nine years. As after many years being a CFO controller that I'm like this, like I said, there's people out there who need our services.

And from it, I came where, if anybody's familiar with the brand Il Melinos, I came from Il Melinos, a single restaurant, to where they went across the board. I came from Emmys, where they were one restaurant, and I was there across the board. Tam Restaurant Group, they were there. I bought them the IPO. So it's looking at the numbers and knowing what's there.

Give that information to ownership so they can turn around and make the decision to either expand or whatever, have you have whatever they're going to do. But strictly restaurant, it's just that. We are restaurant accounting and hospitality services. Where some places, restaurants open up and they have flappers on or they're doing the Vogue like Madonna in a sense. They turn around and they don't know. They lose sight of things. And then as a customer, I always walk into the restaurant and my eyes are always wide open. So I get to see everything, the whole big picture from the time I walk into the door to the time I'm seated down at the table. As I'm seating at the seat, I take a look around at the whole restaurant and I'm looking at things and then I advise them on how to make the place better. And a lot of times they

don't see that because they'll come in, like you said earlier about with the industry right now, we're going through labor shortages, we're going through supply chain shortages and so on. These are things that they have to navigate. But then what happens is if they're not focusing, if they're not walking to the restaurant eyes wide open, they'll miss something here and there and there. And you don't want a customer who will come in and see something and then go tell 10 friends and then you go tell 10 friends

and next it would affect your business. So certainly restaurant is not just about accounting aspects of things, but it's also bringing light to you from a customer's point of view or what we see as we walk into the door. And it helps you make the decisions to run your business. There you go. That's really important. I have a restaurant that I really like to go to, and they make some of the best chicken in the world. And it is the best chicken in the world as far as i've ever had and but they have something they do where they have a stack of those uh trays and someone washes

them and then they stack them so when you pick them up they're still wet underneath which is like gross and i don't think somebody fully cleans them because sometimes they're sticky and it's just it's one of those things that you're just like, this is killing you. Just this one thing. You guys make all this great stuff. I remember years ago seeing the number one McDonald's in America and they're like, why do you sell

so well? Keeping the bathrooms clean. I'm like, what? Clean bathrooms. It tells the customers everything they want to know and no customer comes back if the bathroom's not clean. So I had to write it and tell them, hey. It's actually very, it's a very valid thing that you said because stewards, I never like to ever use the terms dishwasher. They're stewards, okay?

It's an elevated term. It's more of a respectful term. But those are the most important people in your, if they're not taking care of the facilities, if they're not taking care of the dishes and so on, then you can't function. So it always does come from them and then you go all out. And that's funny that you say that because it does. And it's little things like that. And then it has a ripple effect because if that's not good, then they'll overlook and they won't see that the soda machine is not cleaned off and so on, which is things like this that they don't know. Or something is underneath the thing.

I love going to places and I get down on my hands and knees and people think I'm doing a pushup. No, I'm getting down on my hands and knees so I can look underneath your shelving and be like, hey, you know what I mean? If I put my hand underneath there and I pull something out, there's a problem. Yeah. No one wants to see stuff like that. But so, you know, this has been a hard time for a lot of restaurants too over COVID.

A lot of them weren't ready to go online for deliveries or taking orders online. A lot of them didn't even have their websites set up. They really got in, in not ready for the, technically what would become the new age of ordering food because of the COVID thing. How do you guys help companies prosper with the setup that you have and all that good stuff? Well, it's funny. It's a good question. It's funny that you did say that because it wasn't, people weren't ready for it, especially a lot of your high-end restaurants too weren't ready because they don't need that. And what we did was we worked with clients who basically you had to recreate yourself and you had to reimagine yourself and you have to turn around and start thinking outside the box.

And I have restaurants that literally had no online presence in terms of doing what you're saying, etc. You need to look at what sells, what could be packaged on a to-go process, what could hold and maintain this quality as it goes along to the destination. And come out of this, you have to survive. For the most part, I would say 99.95% of all my clients that I've had listen and work with during the COVID that we came out. It's the ones that will kiss you on the cheeks.

And then when you turn around, they go back and do another thing. And they're the ones that didn came out. It's, you know, it's the ones that will kiss you on the cheeks. And then when you turn around and go back and do another thing, um, and then the ones that didn't succeed, but it was a challenge because a lot of people didn't. And a lot of your operations that you meet, you're lower to median price point. They're already out there online and you have to turn around. And again,

look at what sells, strive them to turn around and focus on what moves and then eliminate what doesn't and then focus on that and do that well. Meet the expectations. And COVID changed a lot with the timing and everything. People now ate breakfast, they ate lunch, they ate dinner because they were home. So it wasn't we were wearing at the office going to 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock at night and say, let's meet up and have some drinks or whatever. And so on. I'll have some tapas and whatever. They turned around and now they ate all the same time. The challenge is even coming out from COVID was trying to get that consumer to now come back out for breakfast, come back out for lunch or come out for dinner.

And then not that prime time, not that five 36 o'clock, six 30 sweet spot that they all want to eat because we're paying for the rent to the overhead. We need you to.30, 6 o'clock, 6.30 sweet spot that they all want to eat because we're paying for the rent or the overhead. We need you to come in at 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock. And now it's a challenge. Now all of a sudden with this new variant out there, what is it? The Omnicore. Now all of a sudden it's ringing the bell, the sky's falling and everybody's running

around and they don't want to turn around. We really need the consumer to have confidence in themselves and come back out and enjoy it. Because I've noticed and I've seen it. I've seen the trend where people just want that prime spot. And if you can't get it, then they're going to go somewhere else. And so you really have to stay true to yourself and give the consumer what to expect. But during COVID, it was a challenge. And I've had people where I had to tell them, you put on your big boy's pants or you put on your big girl's pants, you're the owner and you get in there and you do it. Everybody's, oh, oh, oh, the feelings and all this stuff and everything here and all that stuff.

And no, you have a business to run. That's what it is. And Strictly Restaurants does not look at, we don't look at the owners and we don't say the owners. We say the restaurant. We work for the restaurant. And our goal is to make sure the restaurants are successful. That is our goal. Because if they're there today, then they'll be there. There you go. Now, a lot of the restaurants, I imagine, these guys are chefs.

They're cooks. These guys aren't accounting wizards. They have a passion for food. They have a passion for preparing great tastes and presentation and a wonderful thing that chefs do for us. And so I imagine they're not the most savvy on the other side of, I've got to run numbers. So what are some of the services, if we haven't covered them yet, that you provide? What's your range of services that you offer restaurants? Well, we actually can customize depending on, as you were saying, the operator, his or her knowledge of what they do. But we do everything from a daily sales report. We audit the daily

sales. We generate a daily sales report for them. And we present it in such a fashion that you can actually see where your strong and your weak spots are. And a lot of people have this over here or they're like, let me go in over here and this is going to tell me what it is. It's not. That's all the snapshots. And they'll go online on the platform and says, oh, this is what I'm at. It's not. You have to really dive into it.

We generate schedules for them to really know what their back of the house labor cost is, what their beverage cost is, what their beverage labor is and their overall labor costs. What are you doing? I had one gentleman who I do this daily report and he wasn't interested in covers. He didn't want to see a snapshot of the covers. I said, yes, you do. I said, because covers is cash flow. If you don't show the covers and I don't see what they're generating in the price per person,

there goes cash flow. So I do want to look at covers and you do want to see that out on there. So we do that. We'll do accounts payable. We do payroll. So we're the liaison between the restaurants and the vendors. So we actually, strictly restaurants become your back office. You don't have an office. And that's what I was saying originally earlier when I was saying that the operators viewed the accounting team as an expense. They never, especially, and I've been in it. I literally went from New York as accounts payable clerk to San Diego to be a staff accountant. And then I'm sitting in San Diego. And let me tell you, it's been being in this industry. Everything's all about timing.

Everything you have to know how to time things. So I literally can sit at my desk and I was able to do these, this one location's accounting activity and there's like no time. So what I'm going to do the furthest of the time? And I felt, well, if I'm trying to drag the day out, it's like stealing money, if you sense of you would. You're stealing time. So I turned around and wrote a position back in the early 90s that said, why if you have a person like myself sitting in this office and a person sitting in another office doing a similar position, I created a regional staff accountant position where I now was responsible for five stores. And so it's turned around to always looking to see

how we can be of value to the restaurant. And that's why, again, why I'm the same as that today. So not only do we do the dailies, we do accounts payable, we do payroll, we do weekly bank reconciliations, we do financial, we prepare sales tax, we do everything that is required as if you had somebody in-house and at a fraction of the cost. Yeah. You've been doing this 24 years in the hospitality industry. We went over your background on the bio and that really helped you in creating your company, Strictly Restaurants, right? That's correct. That's right. Yes. Tell us about your team and how that team helps your clients with their expertise.

We actually have a team of 12 people. We have 12 people who work with Strictly Restaurants and they come from a wide range of background. Different fields, different industries, different, if you would, educational levels where they fall out of life. Life experiences too have contributed to their success. And so the team is, I would just call, I think the team here, as using that term as team, we're one team. So you don't have of the 12 people here doing 12 different things. You have 12 people here doing things that strictly restaurant does. You have 12 people here providing to the client what I would be providing to the client and so on. So it helps them because now, like I teach my guys, I don't know. Everything earlier we referred to the phone and how people said, oh, you can go in here and see what it is.

I like my team to touch the data. I want them to touch it. I want them to touch the data. I want them to touch it. I want them to know your sales. I want them to know your invoices. I want to know when I ask you, who's your trash van over at East Village? Or who's the linen company down in Philadelphia? I want to know, okay? And that means if I'm going to ask you that question, you'll never know when I will ask

you that question, that if you're actually touching the data, then you're already going to know the answer. When I ask for the sales, what are they doing? Then you know what they're at. And so they really contribute by being on top of them, being part of the team. If information's missing, then they reach out to the clients. We talk to them. It's literally as if we're part of your management team. We're out there. We communicate every day with them. So I think that's the difference that you get. You have out there Bar Rescue, Restaurant Impossible, and an accounting firm. Well, strictly restaurants, all three of those wrapped up into one.

And that's what it is. So these guys and myself here, we all work together for the benefit and for the success of the restaurants. Wow. And what kind of restaurants have you and can you help them? In all honesty, it's anybody. We have, like I said, we have Michelin star restaurants. We have medium to price up a little price point up higher.

We have medium to low price point concepts. And so it's to us, again, it's knowing the brand, knowing what you have to offer, the product that you're selling, knowing your footprint, knowing what's out there. It's a race. It's a different. David Boulay was the high-end restaurant. David Boulay, minimum coverage, but a successful operation. El Molinos was, again, same thing, a smaller brand, successful operation.

Know what works and what doesn't work. Know if you're going to make pizzas, then, okay, what are you going to make pizzas then okay how what are you going to make the pizza what makes you stand out and so on if you're going to do man then you do it right you do it right and it's a whole experience the whole setting of everything that kind of goes with that so i've worked again with david boulet i worked with iron chef maury i worked with jonathan waxman i worked with tim cush. I worked with many different organizations. So big or small doesn't matter. My career path growing up from pushing a hot dog cart, working at my mother's chickens and ribs, I was a kitchen manager in 10th grade.

I mean, at that time, they didn't have labor laws. So I was here. I'm running a place in 10th grade. When I was a senior, I was in charge of a cafeteria at a factory in Farmingdale, New York. And I'm the one who's there. So again, they didn't worry about it then, but you got to do it. You learn things. You learn how you go along. So again, it could be my experience is any, again, from a high end to a cafeteria, to a cafe. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Now, can you help restaurants anywhere

in the U.S.? Yes, exactly. We are right now, we are in seven states. We're in seven states right now. My goal is to actually roll out and roll across because especially now, people I think right now, they're kind of shooting at, I get clients who email things every night who are part of the closing process. And we see things things people are making decisions and they're like yosemite sam bang they're making the decisions and but really it's not an effective decision and if you're just shooting at the hips and if you do that then like this one person made a comment that they end up picking up the table because they cut the staff too long they cut and they end up picking up the good especially at the price point that you're at.

They don't want to come in and see that the manager's servicing that. You know what I mean? So it's not, or if you cut the kitchen staff too much and then it takes a half hour or 20 minutes, a half hour just to get an appetizer. People don't want that. So you have to be strategically smart in what it is. If you notice some businesses coming down,

then you turn around and shift gears and you say, let's ship out a menu. That's going to be much simpler to get out and much faster to get out. That's what you got to do. So certainly restaurants, our goal is to roll out. Like I said, we are in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

And I have a gentleman in California who's actually talking to us in Northern California about expanding his brand. He's buying into something he wants to expand his brand. So I commend people who are wanting to grow, especially during this pandemic and so on, that they still have faith and they still believe that they can do it. And if you're smart, come to Strictly Restaurants. As you're starting the process, then you're going to come out of the gate. You're going to come out of the gate. You're going to come out of the gate doing things smart. And that's our goal.

That's our goal. We have people who come in, already been out there, and then they come to us, and I just draw a line in the sand. And I say, okay, we're going to put that over to there, and we're going to focus on over here, starting you off on this over here. We'll blend in what you did before, bring it in here. But now on a going forward basis, you're going to get accurate information. You're going to get what you need to know to how to run the business. And what I do, my success as the owner of Strictly Restaurant is I'm cash manager. I know cash.

I know cash. And that is, if you listen to me, obviously, like I said, knock on wood, you listen to me, we came through the pandemic. And that was a key. That was a key. And I think that cemented Strictly Restaurants out there because it was my seventh year. I'm on a track to be my best year. And then all of a sudden, boom, the pandemic hits us. So shift gears, get in management, what you do, your cash cash management and you work through it and you and you come out you know smelling like a rose so i again to me i think any restaurant if we can get across the board get across the country expand and help them as i said earlier you had bar rescue

restaurant impossible to come out there and say 30 the food cost 30 labor cost 30 and you can't operate like that chicken and ribs place or pancake and chicken shouldn't be at a 30% food cost. There you go. You know what I mean? And you can't say, oh, have a 30% labor. You really got to turn around and say the concept-wise.

I remember like Iron Chef Morimoto working with him. I didn't tell him how to cut the sushi. He didn't tell me how to go one plus one. No, calculate. That's my job

and that was his job. So awesome, man. There's so much that you can do for companies. And I love this because like I said, most people that are in restaurants are good at cooking food and making food and presenting food. But I would imagine a lot of accounting geniuses. I know when I started my company, I wasn't. How has your business changed or grown over the last few years and what do you attribute it to? A lot of my business, a lot of my success has really come to for a word about word amount and we've had a few have who let the fingers through the walking

online but it's from it's from again it's from that and it's from people reaching out who've known me from the past called me up and said i want to open up my business and i want you to there or i heard you work with him over here we like we want you to turn around and come work with us i literally went from making a risk. When I started this company, I had four kids. Four kids. Wow. Yes, I have four kids.

And that's the scary part about it. Every entrepreneur who goes out there, if they have a family or they have obligations, you can't come out here and say, I need a paycheck. Because you're now the boss, man. You're the boss lady. You can't turn around and say i need a paycheck you gotta now turn around and put your faith and and trust into yourself get out there and make it work so i did from david boulet and i came out here my very first client was kujitsu

and i have them they're my michelin star restaurant my next one was talking japanese i have them from the beginning over here and then you just grow from adle's in Nashville and so on, Country Music Hall of Fame place. You just grow and it's just continue on expanding. It's this company, literally we have, I think about, what do we got? About 30 something. We have about 30 something restaurants. We have about 30 something restaurants is what we have. So we're not, a lot of people think that in restaurant accounting, if I go with my mother-in-law or my wife or my husband or my uncle or somebody who can do it at the basement or whatever, that should be sufficient. But it's not because those are where things fall through the cracks,

especially if it's family. I worked with my wife or my wife and my mother-in-law. Trust me. You don't know what it is. You know what I mean? Trust me. But no, it's not because they're not looking at it saying, okay, if I misplace these bills over here, they're not going to get mad at me because I'm family.

But they need it. It's the importance of having everything captured and everything recorded and so on. So for us to come in there and be everything for you, the husband, the wife, the brother-in-law, the small garage, somebody working in the basement or whatever. No, Strictly Restaurants is just. And what's nice about it, too, you don't even have to have an office space.

Oh, there you go. You don't have to have an office space. Oh, that's right. You would have to have a back office in your restaurant and make space for. I've seen some back offices at restaurants, and're just a mess and they're just crammed in there. There's food all over the calculator and stuff. It's been a while since I've been in the back office at a restaurant, clearly. But no, yeah, I can see how that makes sense. You're

always like, hey, where's the paperwork we're supposed to give to the accountant so he can figure out whether we're making a profit or not. Yeah, that totally makes sense. As you were saying about the restauranteurs, especially the chefs and all, when they come out, they have this vision. It's the vision of the gingerbread dancing or whatever in their head. They have this vision. And you really have to keep reality. We keep things. And everybody will always be like, yes, chef. No, chef. Yes, chef. No, we keep it real. we turn around and tell you this is where you're at okay this is where your costs are at this is where you're supposed to be at when you measure kitchen labor you don't measure kitchen labor off the total sales of the restaurant

because they didn't make that glass of wine they didn't pour that that bottle they only worked in the back okay so you can't turn around and measure that because then you're actually giving them credit and you're lowering their costs. When you have to turn around and say, on an average, if you're a high-end restaurant, you can have a 20% labor cost for the back of the house. Anything on down, it's got to be 15% to 17% of total food sales. And then you work backwards. People don't think about that. They work back. And next thing you know, especially if you do with chefs and all that stuff, they got to have a whole entourage. They got this sous chef and they got

that pastry chef and they got that person over there and that person over there. And they look at the kitchen and say, oh, my kitchen is doing great. No, stop. And you can't have the front of the house pay for the back of the house because the front of the house, you're paying less wages, especially with the minimum wage and the hourly wages out there, you're paying in the back of the house because the front of the house you're paying less wages especially with the minimum wage and the hourly wages out there you're paying in the back you know so you can't have them carry in the back because they cost more in the back so we do keep again some people they'll they'll listen anybody who reaches out to strictly and really want to grow they would listen and all the time you get some people like well i know i know well okay then what Well, okay, then what do you want Strictly Restaurant to do for you? You know what I mean?

It's crazy. Starting a business, what sort of advice would you give to some of our listeners? Is it based on success, based on passion, knowledge, or combination? What do you think are some of the keys? I think if you want to start a business, obviously you have to have passion about this industry. It is a 24 seven and it is a 24 seven, any business, any owner out there, you got to work. It is 24 seven. And that's why we said before about, I had one gentleman said, Oh, I need to bring home a

thousand dollars a week. I need a paycheck. I told him, don't quit your job. Stay at work. Okay. You know what I mean? Because you get paid less. You have rent, you have employees, you have taxes, you have bills. So it is passion, but then sometimes they get blinded by that passion. And they think that, oh, if I put in over a restaurant over down an alleyway, that you're going to want to walk down, go down an alleyway to go to their place. And that's not the case. So sometimes it is difficult for them to really hear the truth. But for me, I would turn around and say, if anybody who wants to start the business, it is passion. And our job is to see your passion come through.

We will help you have that passion come out. If you allow us to do what we do best, if you allow us to manage your back of the house, work in conjunction with you for your vision to come out, you will be successful. But like I said, don't go down. I had one gentleman down in Manhattan, he was going down an alleyway and he was going to open up a wine bar and then tapas and all. And I'm like, you see where you're at? And then nobody's going, really? You know what I mean? It's not like you're out on the main drag.

You were down around an alley. And I'm like, listen, there's only these seedy parts that the people will go down around an alley. It's not a high-end wine and toppings. So obviously to this day, he still hasn't opened up the place. But, you know, because, again, what he's looking at and what he's trying to figure, if a restaurant's closed and you think you're going to come in and turn it around, if it closed before COVID, then the restaurant didn't do well. Somewhere it fell flat. It didn't do marketing.

It didn't do. Okay. Obviously now you're in COVID. It's a different story. But still you have to turn around and say, what did the owners do prior to and even during COVID to make this a success. And I also, too, as you go out outside of out of your cities and you start getting into your suburbans and so on, you want to look to see if there's a quick check or a wah-wah. Where's the nearest McDonald's? Because they did their studies. They did the financial studies and economic studies. If they didn't find that this trip was viable, that there's no McDonald's on this road

between here and there, no quick checks, no wah-wah, then it's not a viable throughfare. And it's a chance that you're going to say, let me roll the dice and turn around and build a restaurant over here. The landlord's going to want double digit rent percent because you're the one who came into there and you're not going to do well. So if restaurants come to us and again, allow us to do what we do best, and then you're going to be successful. You really are. You can't buy things over the counter and say, I got QuickBooks or I got this and I got this over here and so on. No, let us help you see what your vision is. And the more it is, and you can say, you know what, though, this isn't, it's not working. I don't like this dish. Then we're going to help you change it.

There you go. That's brilliant to have, having a business advisor, especially with someone with the experience that you have in the field. How can restaurants and chefs get ahold of you so they can find out how to utilize your services? They could always go to strictlyrestaurants.com. Again, it's S-T-R-I-C-T-L-Y, restaurants with an S dot com. Or they can call me 646-320-5206. Or the office line here is 60944-382-2228. That's 844-382-2228. So many ways that people can connect with us.

And for me, it's my business line, too. As you said, I give you the office line, too. But people can reach me 24-7. When you do call us, we are part, like I said, we are part of your team. So it's not, restaurants are open seven days a week and so on. And we're part of that. Even though the office may be Monday to Friday, but seven days a week, I'm there with you. So you're never alone.

That's freaking awesome, man. That is awesome. Anything we want to touch on before we go? I think that the, again, I think that if people reach out to Strictly Restaurants on prior to, especially in today, or even during, look at the supply chain out there and the cost. You've got beef and pork's up 21%, fish is up at 8%, eggs are up 8%, chicken's 9%. You've got to reach out to, or reach out to, and we can help you. Let's analyze and let's look to see what sells, what doesn't sell. Some people will say, oh, I can't get rid of my mother's meatballs or so on.

This is a signature dish. But if you can't get the same ingredients, the same product, then all of a sudden it alters the flavor. So people will come in and be like, oh, you know, my flavor or my expectations with this and then notice in the false flat because the supply chain is out there. So we'll work with you.

We're not going to do it for you. We will work with you to single out what is good, what's not good. Every day, if you're something shortage, like I saw today, this morning, a guy was selling six wings of soda and fries for 12 bucks. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Six wings. I'm like selling six wings of soda and fries for 12 bucks wow yeah yeah six wings i'm like six wings okay and fries and i said now that's got to be a low-cost item and he's selling it for 12 and i said do you move it a lot he says no i said it's 12 you know six wings okay

but it's it's things like that it's it's things like that and that's where it's interesting because i will come in and i will just my advice or something i noticed and so i think anything again it's the supply chain shortage the labor shortage that we have up over here we've seen the news that they said with this extra unemployment they had gone it amortized out with no rent now today they announced today too that they freeze the student loan the federal student loan now into may so while you're doing that you're basically now like anybody who's young you can tell me i don't have to pay after three hundred dollars to my student loan i'm gonna go spend that three hundred dollars well what happens is if you spend

that you're not gonna have that to come out for us. But because of it, the reason I brought that up is that they figured, and the economists came up and said it was like a $55,000 a year pay. Now these people, they were getting that, and now they want to come out and they want $55,000 a year. They want to turn around and do this, and this is the challenge that we have in trying to reeducate the consumer or now the employee that this whole pandemic caused things to be upside down and so on. And obviously from the labor and now the supply shortage and all. So to be a restaurant operator, you really need to turn around and allow strictly restaurants to

manage your back office, to manage your bills, work in conjunction with you while you are managing your front of the house and you're managing your labor and so on. I think for us, if we can get people out there to reach out to us prior to or even during here, we can help you come out of this. And it's, yeah, I never, let me tell you, and it's no nine years being in this business over here, my own company, 20 something years of being a CFO controller, no restaurants closed underneath my home. That's awesome, man. It's from knowing this industry

and knowing how things are. Sometimes I look at people, I look at the maitre d's outfit. I'll look at something. Or you go to a restaurant. You ever go to a restaurant on a Friday night and you got two people sitting in a six-top. It's like, why would you sit two people sitting at a six-top table? And especially a boot.

So when somebody like myself come with my four kids, I'm like beating out. I'm like, man, because I can't get these kids to sit down and eat because you sat two people at a six-stop table. And so it's things like that, that the manager should have worked with the hostess and the manager should have said, you know what, though? It is a Friday night. Let's stare deuces over to this station over here or these tables over here.

Don't take up. So it's things like that, that I will turn around and help you actually see and so on. There you go. I think it's extraordinary. I never really thought about the back end of it. And I know people that have restaurants, there's a lot of issues that they have to do. And, yeah, it's a really hard business. I've thought about getting in the restaurant business.

And I'm like, no, those people just work their butts off. And you don't need any more pain in the butt paperwork than you already have. It can pay off. It really can pay off if you have the right team in place and if you allow the people who you're hiring to do. I had one gentleman who wanted to expand and I went out and did a market research for him. Excuse me. I did a market research for him and I said, hey guys, I said, you want to open up right around the corner where you're at, you're going to cut your lunch business in half. So it doesn't make sense.

Why would you do it? And they listened. They never did it. But you can be very rewarding. There you go. There you go. Jeff, it's been wonderful to have you on the show and insightful. Give us your.com so we can go find you on the interwebs.

StrictlyRestaurants.com. There you go. StrictlyRestaurants.com. Thank you very much for coming on, Jeff. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you for having us, and happy holidays to you. Happy holidays to you, too, and to our audience as well, wherever you are in the holidays when we publish this.

I think it'll be tonight. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays and a safe new year. Be good to each other. Go to YouTube.com to see the video version publish this. I think it'll be tonight. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays and a safe New Year. Be good to each other. Go to YouTube.com to see the video version of this. Go to Goodreads.com and see Chris and see all the things we're doing there. All of our groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, check them all out. Thanks for tuning in, everyone.

Be well, stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.