Serving California Food in Alabama with Jennifer Ryan

Zack: 0:00

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast, where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is sponsored by Ovation, a two-question guest feedback platform that gives multi-net restaurants all the answers without annoying their guests with all the questions. Learn more at ovationupcom. Today I'm so excited because not only do we have someone who's on the tech side, but also someone who's on the restaurant side, also someone who's on the investor side and on the advisory side. I don't know if there's another side that you could be on, but we've got Jennifer Ryan on. What's up, jennifer, how are you?

Jennifer: 0:39

Hi, I'm wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.

Zack: 0:41

Absolutely, it is our pleasure. And, for those who aren't familiar with Jennifer, you are the founder and CEO of BlueRoot and the co-founder and CEO of Crews, spelled C-R-O-U-X, which is the tech platform, blueroot being the restaurant, and you, like I said, you do investing, you're on boards and you, a couple of months ago, joined Lauren Fernandez's board at full course and we here at Ovation we love Lauren. She is just such a rock star. I've had the privilege on being on a couple of panels with her, she's been on the podcast. She is just super cool and so that speaks very highly of you that you have now joined the likes of Meredith to join that board. So, anyway, super cool.

Jennifer: 1:23

It's such a gift to be part of that group. Oh my goodness, lauren's just incredible. The board she's built is just pretty amazing, so I'm very grateful.

Zack: 1:30

Yeah, so talk to me really quickly about the two sides of the coin here on BlueRoot and Crew. Give me a quick summary of what do those two companies do?

Jennifer: 1:39

Sure, blueroot came first. It's the restaurant. It is a healthy, fast, casual eatery in Birmingham, alabama. We're a single unit, independently owned, with women owned restaurant, and I'm so lucky to be teaming up with the James Beard award-winning chef. But ultimately we are going against the grain in the deep South, serving bright, beautiful, delicious whole foods, and we started in 2019. We came to fruition kind of in 2020. We can go deeper into that story if you want, but ultimately you'll find salads, burgers and bowls, a lot of smiles, a warm environment, a welcoming place for anybody, whether you've eaten healthy your entire life or you're learning to experiment and experience new things when it comes to healthfulness and fueling yourself through food. So that's BlueRoot. We're downtown Birmingham and it's been such a joy and, as anybody who knows who runs a restaurant, it's such a challenge and such a formative experience, so we can dive into that.

Jennifer: 2:29

Later came the tech company Crew, which really stemmed from issues I was finding in the world that I lived in through BlueRoot, which was staffing, and so Crew is a platform that connects two sides.

Jennifer: 2:40

It connects a community of talent that is ready and willing to work, looking for flexibility and increased earning power, and connecting them with businesses in the hospitality space that either have one or two shifts to fill or recurring seasonal needs, or looking to build a pipeline of W2 talent. And bringing these two sides together has typically only come through either word of mouth or social media or sort of archaic temp agencies or staffing agencies. And we've changed the game by introducing technology, thrust scores, transparency and pay rates, benefits and insurance for our talent Just game-changing things my co-founders and I believed were so important to support the humans behind hospitality, because that's what holds up this industry is the people, and so Crew and BlueRoot together. Very different on the surface, but at the same time we're focused on building community and love in our local economies, and we do think the future of our local economy starts with the future of work, changing the game. So that's where we are today.

Zack: 3:38

And I love that. Both companies are very mission-driven two very different companies, but you start with the mission, you start with the heart and you grow out. If you were to go in and do some consulting for a company that maybe is on the path, they're doing well but they're trying to think of how do I build the heart into what we're doing now that we've found some success in a few locations, what advice would you give either a technology company or a restaurant in doing that?

Jennifer: 4:05

Sure, I'm sure there are more seasoned and school people than I on this front, but I will tell you from my limited experience doing this in two different arenas it really helps if you start from that place, but if you don't, there's great possibility to build that into the culture. I just think it has to be intentional. Culture, to me, is less about the words on the wall or the mission statement that you say out loud. It drills down to the behaviors and the actions of your people. I do really subscribe to this notion of being a leader that does the hard work. I may not be the person that's got all the culinary skills at Blue Root, because I have an incredible James Bird award winning chef, but I can wash dishes like nobody's business. I should be the person there early when we're first starting out, making sure that things are perfect, scrubbing the toilets at the end of the day, and perhaps that's something that others subscribe to too.

Jennifer: 4:51

But I've just found that doing the hard work and showing your team that you're not above or beneath anything really sets that tone of ownership, and ownership is at the heart of great companies. People believe they're a part of something bigger than themselves, whether your mission is to serve a community or serve a group of people or to give back in some way. I think you really want to bring people in and breed a group of teammates that feels like they own the company with you, and I think that starts with leaders rolling up their sleeves and showing people that they're willing and able to do just about anything that's needed to keep the lights on. And when you're a restaurant owner I know you guys out there all know that feeling we have to do whatever it takes because the buck stops with us. So I think that's where I would start if you really didn't build that in to begin with. But I do think there's hope for any company to envelop that notion of ownership. It just takes some intentionality.

Zack: 5:40

I love that, and one of our customers just recently posted something that they started to do and it's something that in the technology world is very common, but giving stock options to employees. We were talking about helping them feel that ownership like, actually give them some ownership. Our first value, innovation, is be a partner, and what do we do Day one? We give you some equity, we give you some ownership, so you are a partner, and that's something that's so common on the tech side of things, but not as common on the restaurant side of things, and we have this restaurant client who's doing that right now. They live in an area that's very tech focused and they're seeing some amazing results of creating that ownership, caring about what's going on beyond just the fact that, hey, this is my job, but this is mine, you know.

Jennifer: 6:29

I love everything about that and I do think there's two things, one of which is I'm so excited to hear that people are being creative when it comes to ways to support their teammates, like we are nothing without our team. We cannot do this by ourselves. We cannot figure out a way to grow and to scale and to make the impact we want to. It's not a solo venture, and the faster we figure that out and understand our blind spots, the faster we'll be able to, you know, do all those great things that we all are dreaming of, but taking care of the people around us. I have not been perfect in this front, because I've been learning as a leader over the last, you know, decade or so, but I will say, translating some of these experiences from other industries. I worked in finance for a while, I worked in technology and, you're right, I think there's a lot to be learned from other spaces that could be applicable to the restaurant industry, which is so creative and innovative when it comes to the food. But sometimes I find and it's not everyone, but sometimes I find we're a bit stuck in our ways and I think there's some room for new age thinking. I think there's some room for testing the waters and experimenting when it comes to the things outside of food, and that example you gave is such a beautiful one and I totally subscribed to it.

Jennifer: 7:33

I think there's other ideas that we've tossed around and we've talked about an industry. Folks have talked about revenue shares, even finding ways as a small you know, single unit. I wish I could pay top dollar and beat out the competitors. You know around that got 20 units and you know a 10 X revenue stream. But instead of dollars we're trying to give things like parental leave, pay, time off, things of that nature that really do cost at the end of the day, but I think are really meaningful for a team to avoid burnout, to make sure they feel her, to make sure they feel like they've got some time to step away and be with family Again, kind of novel notions in our industry when we're all working around the clock. So I think it's an awesome conversation to have to how we can be more creative to support our people.

Zack: 8:14

I love that. I want to dive into what the most important aspect of guest experience is and with that, one thing I want to kind of like loop into that question for you is price, because going onto your website, looking at what you I mean the food looks amazing but, like I will be honest, there was some sticker shock right, like when I went on there. This is not your Burger King. Swing by, get a $5 burger. I mean you're talking like $16, $17 burgers and you know the stew. I saw the one stew. It looked like a pot of stew that you can get for like $55 and like I've never seen those prices from a fast casual. So I want to ask what the most important aspect of the guest experiences? And like fold into that how do you charge what you charge?

Jennifer: 9:00

So I think, starting with the first question, if I'm being totally honest, we had to figure out who our true customer was, the guests that we were seeking to support. And I will tell you and perhaps it's not like very sexy to say it loud but I made a lot of mistakes because I wanted it to be everything to everyone. When I first started, I did not come from the world of restaurants, and so when I started Blue Root, it was simply out of need and interest and a little bit of an idealistic idea, like I thought that maybe our community could enjoy and appreciate something that was different, that didn't exist. It was very naive, but I will say some of the naivete was good, because it allowed me to sort of, you know, have that blissful ignorance of jumping into what I would consider one of the hardest industries ever, and so when we sharpened the spear on whom we wanted to serve, it was either everything to everybody or it was going to be a group of people and we were going to be able to give back in a different way, and so we chose the latter path, and it took me a minute to get there, and what I mean by that was we found that there was a segment of the community that was looking for something that was pretty premium, these ingredients that I'm not getting from the typical food distributor. I'm getting things from across the board that are, I would say, more specialized, and so we're supporting a group of people that have serious gluten allergies or dairy allergies, or they're not able to find things that you, you know. Perhaps in a bigger market like a New York or a San Francisco, you could find these pretty easily, but in Birmingham, it's pretty difficult to find, to even find, and you may know this, but a plant-based burger is so much more expensive than a beef burger.

Jennifer: 10:28

And so, understanding the cost and trying to figure out a way to thread the needle, observing what this community has asked us for, while still keeping prices within scope, I think, when it comes to growth, the hope for us is that we can do two things, one of which is we can keep the lights on and continue to support the team that I truly believe in supporting. I have a very small team and I believe in paying them as much as we can. I believe in giving them the paytime off. I believe in making sure that they have access to the things that they need in order to feel good at home and at work, and I don't believe in paying those guys minimum wage, and so I factor in my labor costs to that. But I have a small team that I tried to take care of, versus having a bigger team that we pay lower wages to.

Jennifer: 11:09

I think everybody is gonna find the right rubric, the right formula for them, and I think, as we scale, it's clear that you know you can't have everything. You've got to find ways to get. So labor plus product prices you know premium nature means costs are really high, and where we sit in terms of rent over it is really high, and so I think we're trying to figure out a way to make sure we're serving people what they want. But I have people that are very excited that we're there and they continue to support us and the lights are staying on. So we've clearly found a niche, I think, in terms of the following to that is, the ways that we're trying to give back.

Jennifer: 11:45

So we are using sustainable packaging two, three, four times as expensive as a styrofoam piece of paper or a styrofoam container. We are trying to make sure that we're connecting with our local community needs. So, whether that's food banks or at the holidays or any sort of offloading of goods that we do. We donate a ton of food because we have a short self-life on a lot of the foods that I'm willing to sell, and if it passes that day, mark, I'm going to be able to gift it, and so we're finding ways to get back.

Zack: 12:10

You work with Copia at all for that.

Jennifer: 12:12

No, we work with Feed Birmingham. I don't know that organization.

Zack: 12:16

Anyway, Copia, awesome company. They help take excess food and find good uses for it. Anyway, Kimberly Smith is the CEO over there. Just Rockstar Person, Rockstar Company. So anyway, I was just wondering if it seems like you guys would get along really well.

Jennifer: 12:30

Yeah, I love that, and then you know I can't remember the first part of your question. I went down to the pricing point. The beef stew is special for holidays but I think when you do the math, if it serves eight to 10 people, then I think the pricing makes sense. But I think at the end of the day it's oh, go ahead.

Zack: 12:43

Well, I was just going to ask about the most important aspect of guest experience.

Jennifer: 12:47

Yes, so it sounds so silly, but when I first teamed up with my chef, he handed me, setting the table, the book and love that book, yeah, and it was really my introduction into what the hell is this world. How do you even make something as difficult as a restaurant run? What does it look like? And really, you know, I think of that pyramid that he describes in terms of most companies. You know, start with focusing on their investors and it kind of goes down to the next thing. You know like the team has last, and if you really flip that paradigm, you know, really you encourage your team, you support your team, you train the team and everything follows.

Jennifer: 13:21

But I think, going to that, when we talk to the team about what is most important for us when the guest walks through the door, I know it sounds so silly, but it's personal experience, it's personal connection, it's a hello and I will say we're a tiny restaurant of 1,700 square feet. You know you come in the door, we're going to see you, you're going to see us, but I always want to make sure you feel seen and heard, and whether that is a special request, whether that is just, you know, a greeting when somebody walks in the door. We subscribe to that age old notion of the answer is yes, what is the question? And so I try to go above and beyond to make that person feel loved and special. Because I will tell you, in the South it is more frequent than not than somebody walks into a place like ours that has never experienced this level of, I don't know, healthy food or you know, there's seen ingredients on the menu.

Jennifer: 14:05

There's a bit of intimidation, and so making people feel welcome, excited, interested, and making them feel heard and comfortable, I think is really important. And I want to make sure everybody, whether they've had experience with the Bluebird or not, age make model, wherever they come from. I want them to walk in and feel really special, and I will tell you, I hear that time and time again. So it sounds so silly, but it starts with the human to human connection. I believe we have a premium product and some really excited about serving that, but I think, at the end of the day, like people come back because you made them feel seen, you made them have a great experience.

Zack: 14:36

So I think those, jennifer, it is almost like you have like summarized my whole philosophy on hospitality, right, because to me, I love Danny Meyer, I love will get there. I love the unreasonable hospitality is a great follow up to that. Those are kind of like my two books of scripture when it comes to hospitality. But when I look at it it's like a hospitality is proving to the guests that you care Right, that's the core of it. And it starts with convenience. It's got to be easy enough to try. Then it goes up to consistency. It better be good enough for me and the same every time. But then the highest level where you get forgiven on the consistency and the convenience is when you have that connection. When you build that connection, people will go out of their way. It can be a little more inconvenient, they'll forgive some mistakes, but when you have that connection, that's a relationship, that's building a generational brand. And as you're doing this, are there any other, any tactics that you've used to improve the guest experience that you could share?

Jennifer: 15:40

So I think, like most, I'm certainly not creating these out of thin air. I'm certainly trying to read the books and lean on the experts, because I think the best way to learn how to do something is either to jump in you know feet first and try to figure it out and really do the hand-to-hand combat every day and understand what works and take notes and sort of you know, create a playbook. Or it's to talk to the experts, whether through books that they've written or, you know, lean on them for advice, and you know, you hear the same things again and again, the things that we try to subscribe to, one of which is that initial connection. Right, so that's number one. And there's just great consistency, to your point. I just love that so much because people are creatures of habit and they like to know what's coming, they like to hear the same words, they like things ordered in the same way, and so finding that initial connection and then the consistency of just even the words that we use to greet people. So what that really distills down to is systems, and so we've written down the systems and the playbook, and so, again, our team is small, so we're not training massive amounts of people on a consistent basis. But this has been the lifeline for us.

Jennifer: 16:34

When things get busy, when things get wild. It's become really helpful when we have talent from crew coming into Bloor to help wash dishes or stand at the cash here. If we need an extra set of hands, there are systems in place. And it is so hard when you're in it every day because you just want to keep doing what you need to do, to keep the lights on. You need to go wash that stock of dishes, you need to go greet these new customers, you need to go put out a fire. But it's truly important, as my mentors and advisors keep telling you, you've got to step out of the business to really run the business.

Jennifer: 17:03

Taking that time feels so unproductive in those early stages when you're writing your policies and procedures and you're writing your training manuals and you're thinking about the values that you want to instill in your team so that they instill them in the customers.

Jennifer: 17:15

But that time was so invaluable. So I think putting those systems in place but I think the caveat is it's important for them to be a bit flexible because you grow right, your values should stay the course and should stay consistent. But those policies, procedures, maybe systems, the way that you effectuate those day to day. It's okay to have a little flexibility, because your customers might change, your menu might change, the weather might change, and so giving the team a bit of ownership and freedom to take some liberties when they I think empowerment is probably the word I'm looking for Giving them those systems and saying I trust you enough to know that you've got some bounds, you're there to move, and so that's the last thing I'm saying is empowering the team, because you can't be all places at all times, and so training them enough to know that you feel comfortable, empowering them to make them feel like an owner. It goes right back to what we talked about to begin with.

Zack: 18:05

So Love that, yeah, and with that, jennifer, who is someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry, who's someone that we should be following.

Jennifer: 18:13

Oh, my goodness. A lot of names here, but I'm going to pick one for the purposes of this conversation Lindsay, nodo King. Shout out to Lindsay. She is a co-founder at Crew. She is a chef, she's been an owner, she's been an operator. She's the head chef for Cisco for the state of Alabama right now. She wears a lot of hats.

Jennifer: 18:28

When I think of Lindsay, I think of every facet of the hospitality industry represented. She has run a restaurant, she has cooked in every position behind a back of house. She has been a gig worker, she caters weddings in her free time and now she's a founder that is really, really focused on helping businesses fill gaps in their schedule so that they can run at top speed. And so this is someone who I met through the industry and has opened my eyes to not just what the industry represents in terms of creativity and innovation, but also of great kindness. She just embodies the word hospitality. You want to go sit at her table? You want to go have a meal with her? Her arms are open, so I'm pretty excited about being able to work with her full time.

Zack: 19:12

That is awesome, great, shout out. My goodness. If someone were to say half of that stuff about me, I would just blush man, that is so cool. So well, jennifer, where can people go to learn more about Blue Root and Crew?

Jennifer: 19:24

Yes, Go to bluerootcocom to learn more about us. Stop by if you're in Birmingham. We would love to feed you and for Crew crew, C-R-O-U-Xco. Or you can follow us at Join Crew on Instagram or Facebook or Blue Root on Instagram or Facebook. Look forward to seeing everybody there and thank you again for having me today. What a pleasure.

Zack: 19:44

Well, Jennifer, for helping this crew dig to the Blue Root of customer experience. Today's Ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving Ovation.

Jennifer: 19:53

Thank you so much.

Zack: 19:54

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We're all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by Ovation, a two question SMS-based actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovationupcom. Thanks.