From Tractor Salesman to Restaurant Entrepreneur

Zack 0:00

Welcome to another episode 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 , an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests With all the questions . Learn more at OvationUpcom . And today I'm so excited because we have Rick Mailer with us , who 25 years ago founded something called City Barbecue , and we met in person speaking at the Kathleen Wood event in New York City and I was just so impressed . I normally don't get a chance to sit in and listen to other speakers , but I was so interested in what Rick had to say and he gave a great I almost want to say sermon .

Zack 0:47

Rick , Like it was just it was powerful talking about your story and the guest experience and the vision , and so afterwards I was like Rick , you gotta come on the podcast . So I'm glad we were finally able to get this on the calendar . So , Rick , I'd love for you to tell a little bit about the story of City Barbecue . I mean , how did this start ? And because you go to your LinkedIn and it's like John Deere and then City Barbecue . You did not start this as a restaurateur .

Rick Malir 1:15

No , that's a perfect bridge . I mean John Deere tractor salesman to segue into restaurants seems natural to me . I don't know why . Is there a different path ? No , not all restauranteurs started out in the agriculture and machinery business . Well , I guess it comes down to I'm going to try to keep this short . On the backstory is like ag economics major from Kansas State University Got to give a shout out to the Wildcats and then went to work for John Deere as a corporate guy .

Rick Malir 1:43

Great company , really enjoyed the people but also realized that you know , I'm just cut different . It doesn't make it right or wrong , I was just cut a little different . It was an entrepreneurial bent , like I wanted to have my own thing , if you will . And so looking around for a lot of businesses to buy to start , it was interesting and my brain kept coming back to the hospitality business because I always had that fascination with them . I thought it was very cool to serve people , that you could be creative , you could do a lot of different things , and so that's where I always kept landing , whether I wanted to or not .

Rick Malir 2:20

And then I couldn't get the thought of barbecue out of my head because I love smoking . I was introduced to it by some college friends when I was in school and the real craft of what it was . And then I kind of looked around Columbus and went , hmm , I'm fascinated with restaurants , I really like barbecue and there just weren't any competitors around . I thought , you know , I'm going to have a marketing plan and my marketing plan is very extensive . I put a lot of work into it and the work was I bet there's 500 other guys like me that will enjoy this food . That was my marketing plan of who the customer would be fortunate enough to meet them . Actually , one of them I was talking to today at a tasting in our office . I can go back to that later .

Rick Malir 3:08

But we joined up that way and they were the ones smart enough to keep their day jobs . I was the one crazy enough to say , yeah , I'll quit John Deere , I'll convince Bonnie to partner with me and double mortgage the house , put our life savings into a place and try to get this thing going . But we had a problem also that they knew how to really do barbecue . Great , I was the idiot that was ready to jump and do this thing , take the big chances a 35-year-old but none of us knew how to run a restaurant . That's kind of that's needed . And so I joined up with a third leg of the stool , as I like to say , and that was Frank Pizzo , who was one of our original founders as well . And so I joined up with a third leg of the stool , as I like to say , and that was Frank Pizzo , who was one of our original founders as well , and he was a Burger King guy . And so Frank really understood systems , point of sale , all that stuff right as a franchisee at Burger King . And Frank and I shared the same values as we were talking over time . And finally I said , frank , why don't we join up on this thing and try it ? And he said , okay , so that's really kind of how we put this thing all together .

Rick Malir 4:09

But it was a true bootstrap business . It was an old donut shop literally built the tables in my garage because I went to , I went to the restaurant supply place and the table costs 180 bucks at the time and I said , man , that's crazy , I can buy a used table stand for 15 . And I literally went to Home Depot and grabbed a pine board and sawed it up and made tables in the garage before . But you're , hey , you know , I can save some money here . What's fun is those tables are still in the first restaurant and we put little placards on them saying by the way , these were built by Rick Mail and John Keene , who was one of the other original founders . Oh , wow , that's you're enjoying this barbecue on 25 years later .

Rick Malir 4:53

So we started with one joint . We started officially as a caterer because we had so many delays getting the first one open and I didn't have any money . I didn't come for money . Bonnie , my wife , didn't come for money . I couldn't just pick up the phone and call people and say , hey , I need more cash . But we had these delays . I was like I need to get a little income here because now I'd already quit John Deere and so we would do catering out of my garage .

Rick Malir 5:17

And , as I like to say , the statute of limitations are over because we did not have health permits . We followed health code law . We wash and sanitize , we did all that , killed all the landscaping in the back of my house because of the chemicals , but we didn't have any licenses . But I just said , you know , let's just take a few jobs and start cooking and see where I can get some cash coming in while we get this restaurant open . So that was sort of leading up to the first one at City Bar barbecue . And to me it was interesting in the fact that what we really were obsessed with was is the food good , is it delicious , is it yummy ? Is it the quality of what you would maybe get at a barbecue contest ? Because my partners had won the 1997 American Royal in brisket , which was a huge deal , no-transcript and can we serve really great food ? And then we figured the homemade tables would be okay .

Zack 6:24

Yeah , yeah , I like that you put your emphasis where the real value was and I think that a lot of times it sounds so simple , but that's sometimes hard to do . You get swept up in a whole bunch of other things and it's hard to remember that when you're getting punched in the face with bills come and due , with your mortgage payments needing to come on , you start to cut the wrong corners and it's great that you really focused on that food first , and I think even starting off at catering first means that you have to focus on the food first , right ? You don't have a lot of other stuff to distract you with .

Rick Malir 6:58

And that's the fun thing is , when I do these podcasts or talk , I always try to analyze the audience and say what do they want to hear and why should they listen to me , or what do I have to offer to this conversation ? And I'm guessing a lot of your listeners are restaurant owners . Maybe they're entrepreneurs , they're thinking about doing their own thing . So I'm trying to try to talk about things that might kind of get their brains going a little bit . But one of them was I looked at a franchise , to be a franchisee of a barbecue joint before we started City Barbecue , and then I bought a handbook on it . This is so crazy . This is 1998 , when the Internet was such a new thing that you didn't really do much of a Google search . Or you know , I'm still sending off for books , and it's not through Amazon . It's like , hey , I found this and this guy .

Zack 7:47

Franchising for dummies .

Rick Malir 7:48

Yeah , franchising for dummies from some guy who was an expert on franchising but I remember it was so impactful because the bottom line of it was being a franchisee is almost the worst of both worlds . And so I'm reading it more and more and it goes you're working for a big corporation , but you're also got all your money invested . And I'm kind of going okay , I get it . Now there's a lot of people that made a lot of money being a franchisee , so I'm not going to poo-poo it .

Rick Malir 8:20

But what it hit me was like I'm going , man , I don't want to be in the corporate world anymore , I want to be an entrepreneur . And here , why would I be a franchisee if I got to give them all this money ? Go with their branding , go with the food they tell me to serve and how to do it , and et cetera . And so it was very enlightening . And that's where I said , you know , after meeting that franchisor of a barbecue joint back then , I decided you know , I think I want to do this on my own . And then I met the barbecue boys and Frank and we kind of put this whole thing together . So it's sort of interesting if you're thinking about starting a business and you're looking at a franchise . I'm not saying don't do it . I'm saying investigate the living daylights out of it and see what real value they bring to you and to your area .

Zack 9:05

I totally agree , because there's some concepts where , man , it is a great business in a box and you're able to just start from day one , hit the ground running , the big decisions have been made for you , the technology is like locked down and there's some great opportunities there . But , to your point , talk to people who are doing down and there's some great opportunities there , but , to your point , talk to people who are doing it , because there's some definite mixed reviews . And in the end , though , I think , whether you have a franchisee , you know you decided to be a franchisee , you decided to open up your own thing . The key is and this is something I loved hearing you talk about in New York was is the guest experience . And so , when you think about the guest experience , rick , what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays ? I think it's that emotional connection .

Rick Malir 9:49

It sounds soft and fuzzy , but you teed up the biggest softball ever for me , by the way . So this is you just threw one right down the middle of the plate . But it's so important to have that guest feel good when they come in and when we're serving barbecue over a beat-up counter with homemade tables and paper towels on the tables for your napkins and a pretty rudimentary joint

Building Genuine Guest Connections

Rick Malir 10:15

. In our first one , we had to focus on how do we really engage that guest ? And we're a fast , casual concept , so we don't have servers walking around taking your order . We're a fast , casual concept . They walk up to the register and they're greeted . And so we really came in .

Rick Malir 10:32

And I think the advantage of having a John Deere experience versus a restaurant experience was I couldn't break the rules because I didn't know what they were . Oh , interesting , I had no idea what the rules were . And , for example , frank and I are talking and he goes hey , do you know what the minimum wage is in Ohio ? Because his mindset was well , burger King , we're going to try to pay minimum to get them in , and all this . And I said Frank , one is , I don't care because I want to hire really great people and give them a great opportunity here . So I don't care what minimum wage is , because we're not even going to think about that . We're not going to have a race to the bottom here . We're going to pay the most we can and that's actually a value we have .

Rick Malir 11:11

An operating principle is when you run your restaurant and your joint , figure out how you can run it efficiently and build the sales to where you can pay your teams the most you can , not the least you can . And that's a rule that I didn't know I was breaking at the time . Now it's in vogue , right , you know , you know in companies , but back then you know it was a minimum wage mentality in the business . And so we broke that rule and we did have some really terrific teams and we really wanted them to not have a guest come in and say , yeah , I'd like a brisket sandwich , and then we say , do you want fries with that ? We didn't have greetings . We said greet the guest how you'd want to greet them when they walk in your door at home and just make them feel like they're a special part of this . And so when we look at the guest experience and , by the way , the caveat here is that we are absolutely far from perfect . I mean , we strive every day to make this work better , to make this work better , but it starts with that basic interaction of a team member when that guest comes in , and are they being genuine and authentic with them ?

Rick Malir 12:17

Here's an example of things I fight is we have a loyalty program , right ? And so some of the guys , especially the IT guys in our company , are going yeah , we need to get more loyalty signups because that dried , blah , blah , blah . And they're giving me all these statistics and analytics on why that's important . And I get it , you want to have a loyalty program . But they were for a while telling the cashiers , every guest that walks in ask them if they'd like to join loyalty . Oh , like no , you just killed the emotional connection with that guest because you're beating them up , asking them to join loyalty . If they want to join loyalty it's because they had a great guest experience and now they want to be more involved in the program .

Zack 12:57

Yeah , oh my gosh , I love that , because to me , joining a loyalty program , that is the permission for the first kiss . Yeah , you know what I mean . And that happens normally after a good first date , right ? You don't go bump someone up for a date and say , hey , you want to go on a second date , and it's like , hey , buddy , let's have dinner first .

Rick Malir 13:17

Let's like , calm down , yeah , and so that's what so I think can get overlooked today in hospitality is that experience of just engaging and loving the guests . And I got such a great story I hear today from another company out there , jeff Ruby Steakhouse out of Cincinnati . So the gal that cuts my hair , she goes . She took her kids there for their birthday they're like 14 years old and she took them there as a big deal because that's where they wanted to go .

Rick Malir 13:44

And you spend a lot of money at Jeff Ruby's it's not a cheap steak place and I said , how did it go when she was cutting my hair ? Today and she goes oh my gosh , they made this special cake out of a Nike shoe . They printed a special menu with his name on it because it was his birthday , and they had a special menu for my daughter because she doesn't necessarily like steak , and they did all this crazy hospitality things . And she's just raving about what a great thing it was and I'm thinking to myself they did not use a single piece of technology to do that other than a printer and a little bit of heart right and a little bit of Uber away . And so in this day and age , technology can really help with the frictionless guest experience , to use the fancy terms , to have a frictionless guest experience , but you don't want to use it in a way that eliminates your ability to connect with a guest in a more personal way , and something that we really strive to do , because to me , that's the key .

Rick Malir 14:41

People still want to have some sense of community , because to me , that's the key . People still want to have some sense of community . They still want to have some sense of belonging and friendship and I think a lot of folks out there say well , you know the younger class , they just want to be on their phones , they don't want to talk to anybody . I'm not so sure about that . I think they still , in a lot of ways , want to connect , whether they admit to it or not , even though they're looking at their phone 24-7 , some of them 100% and I think that there's ways that you can connect with people on their phones .

Zack 15:14

Right , Make sure that you know , connect with them in a different way that meets them where they're at .

Zack 15:16

You know not saying that you need to jump onto the metaverse and open up a city barbecue virtual location so that way you can like talk to streamers , but like there's ways that you could just connect with people where they're at and help them feel important , help them feel like you care , help them feel that connection like you're talking about Because at the end of the day , listeners of this podcast know I talk about this all the time the ladder of loyalty , and I'm sure you can like repeat it with me .

Zack 15:39

It starts with convenience , then it ladders up to consistency , but then it really tops things off with connection and you can have great food and have okay loyalty , but when you have great connection and that guest knows that you care about them , that's magic , that is generational brands . And I think that the fact that you were with John Deere , my grandfather he was a farmer and he was amazing at connecting with people , because you would always tell me like when you're dealing with a farmer , it's about people , it's about the handshake it's about . Your word is your bond , and these old school ethics that ring true no matter when they are , and so be it . You know 1950s in Georgia , or today in Sheboygan or New York City people want to know that they're cared about and that you care about them .

Rick Malir 16:31

Even more importantly than that is making sure your teams are connected and feel appreciated and trusted in a genuine way .

Zack 16:40

Yeah .

Rick Malir 16:40

Because only through an amazing employee team member experience can they deliver that great guest experience .

Zack 16:46

Man , rick , we need to have you back on just to talk about how you've scaled from your garage to how many locations . You had now live 75 . Think about that from a garage to 75 locations in 25 years . We need to have an episode just dedicated to that , because that's an incredible journey in and of itself . Now , rick , we're coming up here on time . I know that you know so many people in this industry , but who is someone that you think deserves an ovation ? Who is someone that we should be following in this industry ?

Rick Malir 17:16

I'm going to give a shout out to a good friend of mine . He's a good friend , so I'm a homer here . I'm being biased . We're actually going quail hunting next month again , but I'm going to give a shout out to Rich Rosendale .

Rick Malir 17:26

Chef Rich Rosendale he represented the US in Bocuse d'Or , I want to say about 10 years ago , and he used to be executive chef at the Greenbrier had a known fine dining restaurant here in Columbus . But why I'm giving him a shout out is what he's doing and you can Google him and you'll get onto his website . He does all kinds of stuff , interesting things . He has a subscription service , very innovative in the food space , a freak on new and innovative ways to cook and very experimental . But maybe more importantly , he's like this new chef .

Rick Malir 18:02

That's cool , like he used to do a lot of work for us at City Barbecue , working on different techniques , and he would show up in a t-shirt and do dishes with the crew and knock stuff out . And this guy's a world-renowned certified master chef and he's working in such a humble fashion they aren't having to say yes chef , no chef , that it was hey Rich , what's up , and just a really cool guy that has a lot of interesting things out there that I believe the listeners could learn from so much . So it's Rosendale Collective , I believe would be a good Google . Rich Rosendale , you're going to find it cool guy .

Zack 18:39

Okay , awesome . Well , thanks for that shout . I just checked him out . He looks to follow him . But speaking of following , how do we follow either you ?

Rick Malir 18:47

or City BBQ , citybbqcom . We have an Instagram account , we have the Facebook . We have all that going too . I'm on LinkedIn , though I'm the world's worst user . I'm trying to get better . Yeah , maybe that's the way to do it , and then I've been kicking around to reach our guests a little bit better . Do we start like some podcasts for our guests that they can learn about ? Just stuff like we just learned about today ? Oh , there's a lot of ways to follow , but , uh , yeah , the traditional ways Instagram , facebook , citybbqcom , all that kind of thing .

Zack 19:19

Well , rick , for bringing his backyard barbecue to the city . Today's ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation .

Rick Malir 19:27

Okay , thank you , we'll talk later .

Zack 19:30

Thanks for joining us today . If you liked 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 .