Tim Petrillo | Building Successful Restaurants: Real Estate, Concepts & Consistency #17

Restaurant veteran Tim Petrillo joins Wes Shelton to share the strategic foundation behind The Restaurant People’s success—from securing the right real estate to designing concepts that fit the market to enforcing operational consistency across every location. Tim recounts the early struggles of his first restaurant, the game-changing review that saved it, and the disciplined leadership lessons that shaped TRP’s growth into a multi-concept hospitality group.

He offers candid insights into today’s restaurant landscape, including labor dynamics, rising costs, the push for authenticity, and why guest expectations have evolved dramatically. Tim also discusses mentorship, partnerships, postmortems, and what it takes to sustain excellence in one of the toughest industries. This episode delivers practical wisdom for operators, founders, and anyone who wants to understand how great restaurants are built—and how they survive.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Welcome
• 2:28 Bussing Tables to Building Restaurants
• 3:01 First Job at Banana Boat
• 3:45 Education and Career Growth
• 4:08 Founding the Restaurant People
• 5:26 Opening the First Restaurant
• 7:08 Struggles and Breakthrough
• 12:54 Expansion and New Ventures
• 16:56 Concept Development and Real Estate
• 20:20 Postmortems and Lessons Learned
• 23:36 Post-COVID Challenges
• 29:28 Customer Experience and Expectations
• 34:42 The Energy of the Restaurant Business
• 36:28 Encouraging Youth in the Industry
• 38:57 Handling Difficult Guests
• 40:43 The Hillstone Experience
• 41:25 Commitment to Consistency
• 43:20 Shifting Gears: Partnerships and Strategy
• 43:34 Acquisitions and Growth
• 45:18 Operational Principles and Structure
• 46:24 Successful Partnerships
• 51:57 Mentorship and Guidance
• 1:01:46 Community Involvement and Giving Back
• 1:04:20 Succession Planning
• 1:05:46 Challenges in the Restaurant Industry
• 1:07:57 The Power of Social Media
• 1:10:52 Lessons from Failure
• 1:12:55 Favorite Meals and Restaurants
• 1:15:02 Dream Cars and Closing Remarks

Transcript

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome

Tim: Opening restaurants is the easiest thing in the world. Okay. All you need is money . keeping 'em open is where it gets really hard.

Wes: Tim Petrillo. The Restaurant People. Thanks for coming on. Like a champion. Yep. Super excited to have you. Um, thank you for having me. Yeah. Dan and I have been talking about having you on the show for a while and you know, having lived in Fort Lauderdale for a long time, very familiar with your organization and the restaurants that you have and very highly respected in your, in an industry that I think, uh, at least the perception to me is having worked in a little bit.

Yeah. When I was in college, a very difficult industry to truly not only just make it, but really. But really succeed to the level that you have. And so, well, thank you. 

Tim: I don't argue it's difficult in industry for sure. So I'm not arguing there. 

Wes: Yeah. So I mean, I, that's just the perception. And there was a, there was an article years ago written by the Zagged family.

Tim: Hmm. 

Wes: And it was basically like, I think it became iconic. It was like, if you think you're getting into the restaurant business, think twice. 

Tim: Yeah. 

Wes: But, you know, my wife and I and my family go out all the time and, and we enjoy it. And we appreciate it. And when you see excellence like you have at YOLO and S3 where we go all the time and New Bay, you, you appreciate that because you have at least some perspective as to this is not easy to do, to execute on the food and feeding so many people and making everybody happy.

Tim: Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. Everyone, you know, our business is very accessible for people. Like, a lot of people can't walk into your business and kind of understand or think they know what you do or how you do it, but everybody walks into our business every day, so they, there's. A love for it. And a lot of times people, it's their dream until they get into it, and it very quickly becomes their nightmare because they're not exactly sure what they're getting into.

Right. You know, having a dinner party for 20 people is very different than opening a, a restaurant with 200 seats and that have things. Right. So 

Wes: there's so many aspects to it. Right. I mean, just, you know, you got the food and then you've got dealing with people and logistics and timing and facility issues and, you know, all that stuff.

And I, I, I just find it fascinating to see it all in action and in motion. And, you know, what, set this off for you? Like this journey you've been in the business for, you've been building hospitality experiences for 30 years. Like what's, how did you get into this business? 

[00:02:28] Tim's Early Beginnings

Tim: Well, like most people get into this business.

I, uh, my, I was living, I'm originally from Bo Raton. Uh. And I was going to high school at Pope John Paul, and my parents thought Boca was getting to develop, this was when military trail didn't go all the way past, uh, Al Park Road. So they were like, okay, we need to, we need to move further north. And they moved about 25 minutes north to a place, a small Oceanside community called Ocean Ridge.

Now, you know, at the time it was just a small Oceanside community and, and, uh, so all my friends were in Boca 25 [00:03:00] minutes away. I didn't have anything to do. 

[00:03:01] First Job at Banana Boat

Tim: And during the summer, so I walked across the bridge to this place called Banana Boat, which is still there. Oh, wow. And, and at 13 years old, I asked, uh, you know, is, do you have any jobs?

And the guy threw me a shirt and says, okay, you know, to bus tables. And that was my training. And I was off to the races my first night busing tables, baptism by fire. It seriously, you know, it was, it was like that. Uh, and I. At the end of the night, these people are coming to gimme all this money. I'm like, you know, back then, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm getting tipped out 10, $15 and you know, it's all this cash.

And I go to the bartend day, I'm like, what am I doing with all this money? And the guy's like, that's yours. Yeah, I'm hooked. So that's, that's really where it started and I just was in it ever since. 

[00:03:45] Education and Career Growth

Tim: Went to school for it, uh, transferred to FIU from Florida State to in hospitality management. They had a more sophisticated program at the time.

Uh, started working in some high-end restaurants in, uh, Miami. And then I went to go work for, uh, Hillstone, which was known as Houston's back then, and opened a bunch of restaurants for them. And, uh, and, and, uh, they moved me to Fort Lauderdale. That's how I came to Lauderdale. 

[00:04:08] Founding the Restaurant People

Wes: How did the restaurant people come to be?

How, how did it come to be as you, you as a, as an owner and as a proprietor? 

Tim: Sure. So, uh, so I, I knew I wanted to open my own restaurant and, um. It was always on my radar, even when I was, when I was recruited away from Houstons to go for work for a celebrity chef named Mark Ello, who owned Mark's Los the time.

Oh yeah, sure. So I knew him. He kept on coming into, uh, Houstons, he hired me away. So we opened up, he had Mark's place. We opened up mark's in the Grove, Mark's Los Solis, Mark's South Beach. And then I left right before Mark's Boca opened. But uh, I was working on Los Solis. Mm-hmm. And Peter, our chef partner, was working as the chef there.

And, and, uh, at the time, Alan Hooper and I were friends. We had just met recently and we were talking about doing something together. He had a contract on a piece of property, which was Himer She Barn Grill at the time on Second Street. Yeah. And, uh, you know, right back then there was Tavern 2 1 3 across the street and there was not much down there.

Yeah. Uh, planet, planet, the C uh, good Planet Cafe was down there and there was not much else. It was really pretty much blight. And mid, mid nineties, uh, yeah, mid nineties, exactly. 

[00:05:26] Opening the First Restaurant

Tim: 95 is when, and uh, so we decided to open a Hy Bar and grill together with Peter, myself, and Alan, and we sketched out the business plan literally in, in Alan's kitchen table.

It's not a, it's, it's not a, a cliche. We actually did that. And, uh, we put in, we each put in. A hundred, uh, it was $35,000 a piece. Okay. So that was our first restaurant. And then I raised, you know, you raised money from the three Fs, friends, family, and fools the first go round. And, and my parents went along and [00:06:00] my, uh, and Alan's mom went along and that's how we opened it.

It cost us 143,000 bucks. And that was now in comparison, what they cost now is a dwarf that doesn't even get us a kitchen these days. But, you know, we, we did all the work ourselves. Al was a contractor. We were literally building this stuff ourselves and, and we did it on a shoestring budget. And, and it, you know, it was one of those experience where I'm so glad I went through it because I st you know, you when you know, it's all perception.

When you're going through the grind of something, when you can look back to a day that was way harder than a day you're in now. It always helps you get through it. And I reflect on those days. To this day, you know, when it, when when it gets hard and when it gets, you know, to be a grind, it doesn't even, it pales in comparison to those days.

You know, so you go from painting, fixing, building to changing and training a staff and then opening for dinner and yeah, it's very different. But, uh, and we were off to the, well, we weren't really off to the races. 

[00:07:08] Struggles and Breakthrough

Tim: We about folded. Okay. We were about, we were, we were, we opened in, it was a really like, sort of.

Transitioning area. It was a very bad area. It was not, it, it was what we could afford. Back then, it wasn't a, a destination. Broward Center had just recently opened. It wasn't gaining much traction at the time they were going. The Museum of Discovery and Science was down there. It was gaining traction. You could tell the area was on the come.

Yeah. But it wasn't close. And you know, the restaurants, you, you can't be too far in front of a trend because it takes a lot of money to run a restaurant every day. And, and you need to make sure you have the sales to support that run rate. And, uh, we did not. So we opened up in August. We were, we were dying.

We were doing, now I was working at Hillstone and I was working at, uh, uh, Mark's and we opened a store. And you're doing, yeah. Right away. You're on weights, you open up, you're like, it's, it's, it's a given. So I had this unrealistic expectation that. I was gonna do the same thing that they did because of their reputation.

I didn't have a reputation. I had their reputation before. So when we opened, 

Music: yeah. Yeah. 

Tim: There was not, there was my friends, but that was it. And, and we were doing, like, you know, on a weekend we would do 30 covers a night, which it's not much. Okay. And then we had a couple of nights where we did zero covers.

So I can't tell you how hard it is to keep your staff motivated. Yeah. When there's nobody coming in the door, now they're there to make tips. Okay. Yeah. They're not, you know, the, the, they're not making any, they're not making any money. So they're there because they believe in what you're doing, but if people aren't coming in the door, they're not gonna stick around.

So, you know, I'm doing my best to keep motivated. And, uh, so literally we were, you know, back then [00:09:00] banking was a lot different. It wasn't electronic banking, so you always had the ability to float checks and hopefully get your, get your. Sales to offset your payables. It was a game you played with. Yeah.

Floating and we were constantly doing that. And, and one thing that we know happens if, if you balance a payroll check, yeah. Your staff is gone or you balance a vendor check, you go on COD, you can't play that game anymore. So we were literally playing that game and, uh, I got my resume together and, and I'm like, okay, this isn't working out.

So I, I literally, and I'll never forget it, on, on, um, uh, my birthday, it's the day after Halloween and Sun Sentinel was just going to web-based publishing and they would publish the. You know, when we opened, there was no social media, so it was, you either had to pay for advertising or you had to get reviewed.

Okay. Yeah, because everybody read the newspaper back then, and everybody found out about restaurants through critics or advertising. That was it. You know, it wasn't, this, social media is an incredible, powerful tool for new businesses that we didn't have the luxury of. So we had to wait for this, uh, review to come out, and we weren't getting reviewed.

And, and, uh, you just, it was, back then, it was a blind review. Didn't know who the, uh, reviewer was, and they typically came in a couple times. So, so back then, John t was the critic at the sunset a long time, but he used to publish under ML Warren, who we used to think was a female. So we were looking out for ML Warren as this female.

Mm-hmm. And, and John t who has since passed, he was doing the reviews, so. Wednesday nights, they used to put the, uh, they used to go live with the dining reviews that would, would be published in the Showtime paper on Thursday mornings for the weekend. And, uh, I'm closing down. Uh, and I would be, you know, I'd, I'd open a restaurant and close the restaurant and walk home.

That's, I I was living on, uh, in Coley Hammock. And I'd walk at two o'clock 'cause my wife, my ex-wife and I had sold our car the whole nine yards. And we were, I'd be, I'd walk to the restaurant in the morning, I'd walk home at two o'clock in the morning, uh, from Second Street to Coley Hammock. And, uh, so I, I I'm literally as defeated.

As defeated gets, right. Yeah. You as a entrepreneur, you're like, okay, I'm gonna do this. And now you've had a year of building the restaurant like about four months of just hell of running the restaurant. You're defeated, you're, you're about to throw in the towel. So I'm in a very. Low place, dark place. And then I, I hit the, the review and up comes Hy Bar and Grill review.

And I could not have written this review better myself. I literally Oh wow. What a break. It, it, it went from doing 30 covers on a weekend to 300 doing, you know, that's amazing. A hundred covers a night. And literally we were off to the races. It was like a light switch. And it was, it was. And [00:12:00] what happens with what used to happen with critics is they all know each other.

Okay. Yeah. So if you and I are, are well-respected critics and I work for the Sunset and all, you work for the Herald and I review a restaurant, you're not gonna go behind me and just, well some, if it's awful, you are, but you probably give a little bit more liberties. Trust. Yeah. Your liberties to not, not crush your friend review.

And we rode that wave. So we were getting then the Herald, then every other paper was, and it, so. When we got voted best restaurant in Broward County and the whole nine yards. And then we're off to the races and like six months later, Alan, because he's not in operations, he's bored. I'm like, you know, dealing with all this stuff.

He's like, let's go do another one. I'm like, are you outta your mind? I'm working my ass off here. And uh, so he is like, ah, I'll just, I'll just work on the real estate aspect of it. 

[00:12:54] Expansion and New Ventures

Tim: And then the next thing you know, we did tarp bend, like, like within that next year. And then we did the river house, then we did sidebar, and then we just couldn open restaurants a year at a time.

Did all, then we did tarp bend and coral cables. And then, uh, we're off the races. Yeah. I think I, I still have a free drink chip. Yeah. There's a lot of them. We have so many of those, I mean those wood tokens. Yeah. I have people send me them. Okay. He's like, are these still good? Or send me pictures of 'em. So, so we're, we are contemplating how we bring those things back because I get pictures of people's in their desk.

All these tarp bank tokens. They have jars that 'em on their desk. It's, it's pretty funny. That's, um, that's 

Wes: really, I was gonna say too, before you were talking about how heh she turned the corner. I, I feel like I might have put you in, kept you in business. Well, a sidebar, you know. Yeah. Came back from college.

That was the spot. Yeah. And there really, we really didn't have any spots like that prior. I felt like to, when I finished college in 99. And that, that was, that was, you guys were the bell cow. Like you created that whole area. So, 

Tim: you know what's interesting? I, I think why Henry, she Barr and Grill was successful is because people are so much more well educated in food now than they were then.

Okay. Yeah. Because of food network, because of social media, people have a way more a access to food and knowledge about food and things like that. So we were the first to really make, we, we were doing really high-end Michelin star food at Mark's. You know, he won the James Beard Award, he won a top chef in the country.

So we were doing his elevated food. But none of my friends could ever afford that. Right. Yeah. They couldn't go in and they couldn't buy, you know, they're not gonna spend at the time, back then it was like, you know, 35, 40 bucks a plate. Yeah, yeah. When, and so we could afford, you know, 15 to $20 a plate. So we got, we kind of brought that price point and did elevated food and made it just very approachable.

And I think that's what really resonated with people like [00:15:00] you coming back from school and Yeah. And, you know, because it was, it was, it was people all, you know, that are all our own age at that time, going into those areas back then, you know? 

Wes: And so that was actually kind of already led into my, my next question, but that moment or that time period when you realized, hey, we've got something here.

We, we think let's go out and do it again. 

Music: Yeah. 

Wes: And what makes it so unique to me about your group? Is that all your, your concepts are unique, so like 

Tim: Yeah, we don't do it easy. That's one thing. It's like, you know, and I say that as a joke, but it's also true. The, the, the easiest thing to do is replicate, right?

Yeah. Because you've, you've built out the risk. You've, you see what works now, you just kinda replicate. And, and we did that with Tarp and Ben, we, we opened a few of those and I found that our strategy with having the real estate, having the restaurant owning real estate around it. Mm-hmm. Developers real take a play.

Real, real estate developers, the hardest part of their job in development is, well there's a lot of hard parts in development, but, but the end user, yeah. And the co-tenancy of the end user is always a challenge with developers. So we have the asset where we can be the end user, and it's like you look at Fat Village, we are recruiting a lot of.

My relationships from the hospitality community because they know how we operate, they know what kind of operators we are. They have trust that they're gonna, if if they sit next to us in a development, we're not going to be doing three for one shots and all this other stuff. We have like-minded operators that are going to go and, and, and focus marketing on a quality consumer that is in the same genre that they market to.

[00:16:55] Concept Development and Real Estate

Wes: So Tim, um, sticking with that sort of same thought process of the evolution of the concept, like what does that look like? Right. You look at. Documentaries on song makers. Right. And bands. How did that song get made? Did, did you start writing the lyrics first, or was it, did, did the melodies and then you put lyrics to the melodies?

Like when you're working on a new concept and your executive team, like, and obviously you, your, your chef and Peter, and what does that look like? Like what's the evolution there and how do you decide it really has led something? 

Tim: So, so f first off, we, we start with the real estate and the location first.

Okay. That's, that's, that's interesting. Yeah. That's, that's really important for us. The restaurant business is essentially real estate. Yes. And every time I veered off that, it's, it's stung the lesson. Yes. You know, similar to what we have, right? Yeah. Every time I kind of veered off of that plan, it stung.

So we try to get. The best locations possible. Now that sometimes those happen in developments, right? Sometimes those happen organically, like on Los Olds Boulevard, and, uh, opportunity comes up or you start to, [00:18:00] uh, kind of negotiate or try to find out about locations. Uh, and, and, and that's kind of, that's kind of, uh, been a reason why we do different concepts is because we look at the real estate first.

We say, Hmm, this is good real estate. What? Does this, what's this market missing in, in terms of f and b options? Mm-hmm. And is there something that we can program here that will resonate with the demographic here? Mm-hmm. And then we kind of work backwards into that. And, you know, you know, we're doing a, and, and again, a lot of our, our research is done way in advance of anytime we announce a location.

Right? Yeah. I mean, you know, we're working on a Mediterranean Asian concept that is going on Los Angeles Boulevard. Well, we secured that real estate 10 years ago. We started thinking about what's at the, what's the market missing? 

Music: Mm-hmm. 

Tim: And that's why we now, we are leading in with this concept. Now we, I think that our skillset, because we have so many concepts and we have so much data in Greater Fort Lauderdale, that that bodes well to figuring out what might be a void in the market.

But, you know, at the end of the day, it's a highly educated guess and it's. But the key word in that is guess. I mean, at the end of the day, there's no, there's no, this is gonna work. I don't care how many concepts you have, I don't care how many units you have. We've done, we've, we've worked with private equity before and we've rolled out a bunch of units and there's been times where I was like, okay, this, all the data says home run.

Mm-hmm. And all the, what it was was a thud, right? We just, we did a, we did a, we did a restaurant that, uh, when I was working with Anthony, Anthony's cool fire pizza that was, I mean, was right outside Millennium Mall in, in, in, uh, Orlando and traffic patterns, demographics, traffic counts. And we're like, this is absolutely, this is a no brainer.

And then it just didn't, you know, that's the magic of it. You know, if it was, if it was checking a box in each of the boxes and just go, now granted. The more boxes you check, the higher probability, but it's 

Wes: never guaranteed. 

[00:20:20] Postmortems and Lessons Learned

Wes: Do you guys do, for lack of a better term, a postmortem? We do postmortems. Why did it 

Tim: not work?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. We do postmortems about events. We do postmortems about just about everything. Like, you know, we'll do postmortems about our, our how we did handle the holiday season. We'll do postmortems about how we actually, you know, launched a new product and mm-hmm. We do postmortems about everything, you know, we just, I think it's healthy.

It's, it, well, I think you learn more from what you, what didn't work than what works. Right. Yeah. What's the toughest lesson that you can remember? Okay. I will say there's, well, I, I, I would say that, um, you, the toughest lesson I ever learned or the, the, the lesson I, [00:21:00] I. I always take into account now is I never listen to the press on both ends.

You're not as good as they say you are. You're not as bad as they say you are. And when you listen too much, especially on the good side, you tend to, uh, get way overconfident, get a little high on your end supply, and that's when you get crushed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think fork and Balls was a very good teaching moment for me.

Mm-hmm. You know, we, we saw a concept that worked in New York. We, I love the simplicity of it. I love how guests were using it in New York. I thought it would work easily down here. You know, it didn't, there's a variety of reasons why it didn't work, but again, meatballs in 80 to 90 degree weather. Six months out of the year is a tough Yeah.

Sell. Right. And again, the location was, that was a high pedestrian concept. Mm-hmm. That location wasn't in a high pedestrian area, you know, there it was, it was a quick service model. Before Quick service was quick service. That's when, when we saw that. So, so we went there a number 

Wes: of times. 

Tim: What's that? My,

Wes: my, um, my parents lived on 13th Avenue.

Okay. In a town home. And every once in a while we'd stay there. Yeah. Or like we, we'd have a house tented once. Yeah. So we stayed there for three days. Yeah. And my kids loved it and it, they seemed to execute well on the concept, but. You know? Yeah. But it's, it's, I guess it's a little more sleepy that far east on Las Forest and it, 

Tim: and it's gaining, you know, again, that was 10 years ago.

Yeah. Again, but it comes down to real estate. At the end of the day, we could talk about all the positive things the concept had and everything, but the, it didn't have enough foot traffic. It didn't have enough traffic coming, so it was either the location, the product, or the execution. Okay. Yeah. One of those three things is why, so, so that's a concept.

Sorry, go ahead. Finish, finish. 

Wes: Oh, it's maybe, maybe one of those things, maybe all those three things, right? Yeah. So that's a concept that you more or less garnered from New York City and thought maybe it would be a good application here, and it just didn't, it just didn't, 

Tim: yeah. It just didn't pan out. Now we look at it from we, we look at the.

W the, the what ifs in the negative stand standpoint more than we look at the, the, the possibilities. Mm-hmm. You know, you sometimes you get caught up in the possibilities and you overlook the, the well, what if this doesn't, what if they don't respond to this? Or what if, you know, those types of things when you're vetting the concept and that's where you get in trouble.

Wes: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:23:36] Post-COVID Challenges

Wes: So Tim, um, post COVID, it seems like there's a number of headwinds in, in food service, right? In restaurants, business and, um, most notably from what I've seen, cost of food and cost of labor. Um, I don't know. I've never seen any statistics about labor, but there's, it's been said that many found different careers Oh, yeah.

You know, during that time. So I'm just [00:24:00] curious, how are you dealing and navigating with those headwinds? 

Tim: So, so. I don't wanna say post COVID. I think the restaurant is, is always filled with headwinds. Okay. Whether it's, yeah, sure. You know, whether it's Right. I would say this, anytime you have to, the, the point of contact between the guest or your, or your, your, uh, client, how many people touch that person to get to a great experience?

So, in my line of work, you have, you think about it, you have a person calls to make a reservation. That's one point of contact. A person comes into the greeter. That's another point of contact. A person talks to the bartender. Another point of contact. A person talks to the server. Another point of contact, a person talks to the food on another point, talks to the buser.

Mm-hmm. A, a chef has to make the food. There is probably 20 people in the point of contact that. That my guest or client has to have everything go well for them to have a positive experience. 

Music: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tim: So the amount of options to fail is far greater than a different business, right? Yeah, sure. So that's just one thing that the, then you layer on of those 20 touch points, there might be 30% that look at this as a career.

Okay. 30% of those people are there in that business to be in that business for their life. Okay. Okay. Which is a very different mentality when someone's trying to build a career and build a business. They tend to take more pride. Yeah, sure. And purpose. So that's something that we have to deal with and, and, and that's okay.

Okay. Mm-hmm. Because we understand that, listen, our job is to have you make a lot of money. Your job is to follow our standards and execute the way we want you to do. And you can do that as a stepping stone career. And that's perfectly fine and we welcome that. But you, that just illustrates how many people there are between Yeah.

Us and a good review, let's say. 

Music: Yeah. 

Tim: Um, so that's a challenge. And then what's now a challenge is, uh, now we're competing at w before if you're a college student, right. You know, our, our, our workforce is really f the. 80% of our workforce is between the ages of 20 and 35, I would say. Okay? Mm-hmm. So they're either in school, they're starting out a career, they're on their way to another career.

Mm-hmm. They're in between careers, that type of thing. Well, before there wasn't many options to have a job with. Limited. If you're that, that, that you can have some flexible time and that you can make some good money. Right Now there are, the gig economy has changed that right now you have people driving for Uber.

Now you have, I have my, my [00:27:00] cocktail girls and bartenders, they are influencers on Instagram making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right. That's what they do. Okay. So for me to sit there and try to get them back behind a bar, they don't, no, that's not gonna work. So now that, so I have lost people to, I've lost people to.

Uber driving to Uber eats, to uh, just all these types of gig economies. So we contend with that. So we absolutely have to build a much better culture than they have there, and that's what we have to work on. Yeah. So, but, but to your point, rest, food in general is not gonna get cheaper. Uh, the product itself is at the highest level that we, you're paying as a consumer and you're paying as going into the grocery store.

Right. The, the bright spot was labor before front of the house labor. We were able to give tip credit to our frontal house people. So, you know, the, all the food runners, all the frontal house team. What they would do is if, uh, hypothetically we have bartenders to make 500 bucks a night. Okay? Now we would make sure they made the $15 an hour, but they would turn in 500 bucks.

It would be calculated to make sure they hit that $15 minimum would get a tip credit. Now there's no tip credit, so a bartender could make 1500 bucks a night. I still have to pay them $15 an hour, which doesn't seem fair. Right? Yeah. Because my minimum wage in the kitchen is the same as the minimum wage in the frontal house and they're not walking out with Yeah.

So it's, they have to work that out. Okay. But having said that, food and, and cost of goods used to be the higher thing. Now labor is definitely the higher thing. Yeah. Really interesting. So, and now you ha are contending with those two things, that's, it doesn't leave much margin. And if you have add back now that the fact that drinking is now going away, it's not going away, but it's definitely, it's.

Falling significantly. You know, the consumer health and wellness is really, you know, it's, it's, uh, alcohol and drinking. Alcohol is now on the wrong side of a trend, which it was always on the other side of that trend before. So the industry is battling that as well. It's 

Wes: challenging. I think that if I'm hearing you correctly, it's you're trying to build.

An environment where people would come to work and Yeah. Helping 

[00:29:28] Customer Experience and Expectations

Tim: sort of cater to, you know, we, we have to build that environment on both sides, on the employee side and on the consumer side. I mean, you know, we have to build that environment on the consumer side. 'cause look at how people eat these days.

Okay. I could sit on my couch. I did it yesterday. Yesterday, I was just a chill out mode. I ordered three meals, great meals, one for my own restaurant, Java Jam in the morning. I, I ordered a Italian meal and I ordered dinner. I didn't leave my house and I had restaurant quality [00:30:00] meals delivered to my seat.

Yeah. So, so, so now for our standpoint, when someone's wanting to go out, we need to make sure that going out is something that they can't get anywhere else. Yeah. And that, that's what's gonna drive it. Yeah, sure. 

Wes: I'm curious, do you find the market that you serve, do you think it's. More or less demanding in terms of the expectation than No, you know, somewhere in the, in the Midwest or a smaller town?

No, it 

Tim: is, it is 

Wes: the, the, because it's such a confluence here in South Florida that's, I mean, people from Europe, from South America, 

Tim: which, which makes it, which, which makes it even more challenging, right. I would think because y you know, people here, consumers in South Florida are probably some of the, well, most well-versed food consumers in the nation because it's the most international place of, you know, it's one of the more international communities in the wor in, in the, in the nation.

So, so their view of food and culture could be very different than yours or mine. Yeah. And, and you know, it's, it's funny if you have a, here, if you were to run a, hypothetically, you open up a Spanish restaurant, okay? If you open a Spanish restaurant in the Midwest. People are not gonna be as critical Yeah.

Here, because that is a, you better know what you're doing. Everybody use the word authentic. 

Wes: It. Authentic. Authentic. Like gets to decide if it's authentic or not. Exactly. 

Tim: So so some food 

Wes: blogger. 

Tim: That's right. So, so, and everybody has an opinion, right? And with these bloggers and with these influencers and with social media, the person's view is what's right.

No matter how the, the no, no matter how wrong their view might be. We, we, you know? Yeah. But it's just out there and it's, it's, and you can't get caught up in that stuff, right? You can't, you can't sit there and try to make your statement, try to make your point. And it is so different. You know, the dining time has grown 37 minutes from, in the nineties, 37 minutes longer for a d because what happens is a New York Times had a big special on this.

They, they, they. Took a, they took a camera view of what happens in the dining room and the greeter. It's, it's so funny. Now, this doesn't happen at every table, but the greeter went to go sit the table. No, no. They wanna sit over here. Oh, okay. So they moved from there. Then they had to do their video of the place, and they, they had to get off the table and they walked around, took a video, and then they sit back down and then the food comes and they have a video of it.

And then they don't order because they want have, these are just normal people. These are just normal people. Okay. And, and, and what's happened now is, is that dining time has been stretched. Right. So now you're seeing people limit. You're starting to see, especially in bigger cities, [00:33:00] Miami is all the time.

You have a 90 minute window, you have a two hour window, or you get charged. 'cause people don't really understand, this is their real estate. Restaurant seats are restaurant, and you have six hours to make your money. And if all of a sudden now you are gonna take three hours, those six hours to make, you know, because you're filming it, it's tough.

And I, I understand both sides of it. Yeah. 

Music: Right. I 

Tim: totally understand both sides. I, I hate going into a restaurant where you sign up for all these rules and regulations. You have to be out by this time. You can't sit more than blah, blah. You're like, am I, am I dining here or am I going to a, a, uh, you know, structural 

Wes: thing here, right?

Like a 

Tim: mill or something. Yeah. So, so I totally understand how that eat your meal and get outta here. That works. But, uh, but I also understand the restaurant side of it and, and, uh, you know, I'll use. Miami is a little bit different. We have a couple spots in Miami and uh, it's a little different than, than in Broward, but you know, there are a lot of cultures in Miami that's showing up 45 minutes late for anything is normal.

But when you have a nine o'clock reservation, you wanna push that an hour. That is a tumbling effect for restaurants. I mean, you now, you're not only you, you, you're having a table sit open, but now you're backed up and you're holding up another reservation who might show up on time and, and, and the restaurant's the one in the middle trying to handle all that.

Right. Chaos, everybody happens. That's right. You know, that's just the nature of the beast. 

Wes: Yeah. That's, um, I'm getting a little like low level anxiety just thinking about everybody happy, especially as like a. People pleaser in nature. But, um, I gotta tell 

[00:34:41] The Energy of the Restaurant Business

Tim: you, you know, the bear that, you know, I, I would say the first couple seasons of the definitely the first season, the, that was a, a very realistic show of the intensity that's behind the scene in a restaurant.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, you open a dining room and it's this singing along, you walk through into the kitchen and it is like total chaos. Yeah. It's controlled chaos. Right. But that's just part of the, part of what keeps me going back too. It's an energy that you don't experience all the time. The 

Wes: energy was what I remember.

Yeah. And, and, and I worked at a restaurant in college and, and that was my experience doing it. And I remember it. At times, you know, it, you could have nine really nice guests. Oh yeah. And then one that just kind of, it's like their point to ruin your day over something. Usually pretty minor. Yep. Yep. And you go home and you're like, you just gotta be able to brush it off.

'cause the other nine people were lovely. Right. You know? So 

Tim: where did you work? When I worked 

Wes: at a place and I went to SMU. Okay. And I worked at a place that, uh, was called Grady's American Grill. Oh sure. Yeah. They were all over the place. 

Tim: Yeah. I I I knew they had, they had one in Plantation. Did they? Yeah, actually they had one.

Um, and yeah, right, right at the Plantation Mall where, uh, I wanna say where Darden is, has, uh, their, the former smoking bones out there. That was a Grady's way that day. They 

Wes: were local. I knew they were [00:36:00] a chain and I would place them somewhere between like maybe a Chili's and a Houston's Yeah, exactly. And, uh, you know, homemade salad dressing and stuff.

And so that was, a bunch of my friends worked there and it was right by my apartment. So I worked there and in college and I that, but. The energy was what I remembered. Yep. And I really enjoyed that and it getting outta my shell a little bit. Yeah. 'cause I was a sophomore and that was probably my first real job outside of my father's business.

Yeah. So 

[00:36:28] Encouraging Youth in the Industry

Tim: I, I, I absolutely would encourage any parent if you're gonna give your child a job or get 'em a job or Yeah. Encourage them to get a job when they're in high school. Being in the restaurant industry now, it's a double-edged sword. You don't want 'em to like it too much where they stay in it 'cause it's a tough career.

But it is critical to learn customer service and customer behavior. Yeah. Especially when someone's drunk and hangry. 'cause, 'cause that's when you really have to listen. I made my daughters. They, they couldn't work in our restaurants, and they're not allowed to work in the restaurant business post high school.

They're not, I, I remember you telling me that. I was gonna bring that up. Yeah. But, but, uh, yeah. I made my daughters that they work for Elliot Wolf. I said, I said, you go work at Coconuts, that'd be nice. Because I didn't want them to, I didn't want the staff to treat them differently because they were my daughter, and I didn't want the guests to treat 'em differently.

Right. I wanted 'em to see what it really was about. And they still talk about it to this day. They're like, man, they, you know, and my, my youngest daughter, uh, she was a, uh, greeter at, uh, the country club. The, uh, Fort Dale, Fort Dale Country Club. And she was, so, she had to deal with regular guest and members.

So, so, but I, I encourage it. It's definitely worth, uh, it, it opens your eyes, gives you a totally different perspective. Yeah. And I 

Wes: think 

Tim: it, if. 

Wes: You can succeed in that business in terms of just, just as an employee and making people happy Yeah. And serving their needs and learning how to problem solve.

Right? Yeah. It's, it's on your, and utilize your time wisely. Right? Like full hands in full hands. Yeah. Yeah. Those things. Right. And so still rumor that stuff Yeah, I do. I I was valuable. It was a lot from drop and go, you know, when you drop it, get, you know, looking at other people's tables, cleaning. Yep. And, but yeah, I mean that was definitely a, a lot to, to make sure you were using your time wisely and, and dealing with different personalities.

And I had a lady one time, she said, I'll, I'll do regular water, please, and come back. And she said, no, I, I said regular, I don't want ice in here. And I said, well, what does regular mean? We could, we could go into a philosophical debate. So I come back. And I, I had taken the ice out and poured it and she said, no, I want it.

Like, I want warm water. I mean, it's like, I guess this is like a European tradition or something and so she may or may not have gotten toilet water in that. Yeah. 

[00:38:57] Handling Difficult Guests

Wes: Yeah. You know, 

Tim: it's funny 'cause I'm kidding. No, but, but you [00:39:00] know, so, you know firsthand how challenging to be and we always tell our, our team, you, you can't let it get to who's right.

Okay. Right. They're right. It just, the more you argue you we're gonna end up in the same place, it's just gonna be more expensive for us. Okay. Meaning, you know, if they don't like it. They ate the whole thing and they don't like it, it's still, they don't like it. Yeah. Okay. And now you can hold your ground and do that, and then hope they don't, are you achieving bitch or hope they don't write a review or hope that, but at the end of the day, if they do, you're gonna have to call them back, invite them back in and make it right.

Okay. Because our number one value is the guest above all else. And you have to, you have to adhere to that. And if you don't, it's gonna get far more embarrassing you down the road because they're gonna be Right. So, and granted sometimes, many times the guest was wrong, but they're right. Okay. And, and we don't, we.

Unless it's just egregious behavior where they're insulting and abusive and you know, but if it's something that, you know, a stupid conflict of some sort of, you know, I didn't order this and you know, just let it go. It's not even worth it. 

Wes: One thing you have to, I think, learn is to apologize even though it's not your fault, or even though you didn't do anything wrong or the restaurant didn't do anything wrong.

Yeah. You have to just that apology, you have to eat a lot of pride, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. 

[00:40:43] The Hillstone Experience

Wes: Um, one thing I enjoy about this podcast is learning things about people. I didn't know, I didn't know that you came through Hillstone. Oh, no kidding. I'm a huge fan of Hillstone. Oh. Houston's as is my, my business partner.

And so, um, and specifically what I like about them is the service, but just. The execution, the menu's always simple. 

Tim: It's the gold standard of the restaurant industry. And many people try and copy 'em. Many people try to emulate 'em. Nobody even comes close. I've seen so many concepts that we're gonna do it like Houston's or we're gonna, I, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that.

Right. 

[00:41:25] Commitment to Consistency

Tim: But, uh, people don't realize and recognize the level of intensity that they have in their teams. The incredible commitment to consistency they have in their teams. Mm-hmm. You know, when I say incredible consistency, they, they, they do things behind the scenes that, you know, people just aren't, wouldn't even fathom they do, but the outcomes are where they are because they do those incredibly.

Credible things that you would never expect them to do. 

Wes: You know, we go to the [00:42:00] one in Boca often, 'cause our office used to be right there in military. I opened that one. Yeah, it down. Did you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you walk in for those who know and you're like this to the kitchen. Yeah. You could see the, the, the grill going out.

I love just yeah, those few minutes to watch that or like, 

Tim: yeah, so just to see the mat, the poetry in motion. So that's great. So, so Todd, who is the kitchen manager down there, trained me in Lauderdale at, uh, on the line. Yeah. You have to tr go through the train. He trained me on the line. Yeah. It's, it's a great company.

It's probably the most disciplined company I've ever been involved in. Uh, they, they, uh, they are not, they, they are not afraid to hold a standard. And when I say that, when I say you're not afraid to hold a standard, meaning if you have a long-term employee who's been a great. Employee for a very long time, and they did not hold a standard, you will not hold your job.

And it's that simple. And if there's a drop off, a lot of people say they're committed like that, but they're not. They're, you know, that long-term employee's been a great employee. Yeah. And no, they're, they're, there's a very defined line and they don't, it's not blurred at all. And I respect the shit out of 'em.

[00:43:20] Shifting Gears: Partnerships and Strategy

Wes: So, Tim, I wanna shift gears a little bit and kind of move on to the next subject and, and we want to talk about. Partnerships, strategy m and a, which is kind of the, the core of what we do. Mm-hmm. Un unlike a champion and what, what we do at SM two advisors. 

[00:43:34] Acquisitions and Growth

Wes: Um, as you guys have scaled organically, um, through new ventures, primarily with new concepts, have you ever considered acquisitions or have you made any acquisitions as part of your growth strategy?

Yeah, sure. So we, we bought 

Tim: a company called Shrimp Basket, which was, uh, a, a at the time we bought it, it had about 17 units in five different states, and we grew it to about 39 and flipped it out to another private equity company. We were a development partner with Anthony, with Anthony's Coalfire Pizza.

Mm-hmm. And we grew. Sold that to a private equity group. Um, we exited the first round of, of, at the first sale. Uh, we should have stayed in, but we did hindsight's 2020. Did you sell that to Boyne Capital? We sold ours to, uh, Quill Vest out of England. The first one was Quill Vest. They, they bought it when we had, I wanna say 36 units.

We had, we had about 16 or 17 on the west coast, and Anthony had, uh, the remaining on the East Coast. Um, and then, uh, and we've, we've purchased, uh, Casablanca as a mm-hmm. One-off restaurant. 'cause it again, location was fantastic. Historic restaurant, historic, it was a legacy restaurant 25 years. And we figured it's great real estate and Steve had owned the real estate anyway, so the business was coming up for the, the opportunity and we, we jumped on that.

But, but typically we, you know, when we. If we buy a restaurant company, it's [00:45:00] something that we can build out. Mm-hmm. Then we see, we see the opportunity for growth. Um, or we see an opportunity with the location is typically if we go through a acquisition, but typically we develop 

Wes: our 

Tim: own. 

Wes: So it's now really a part of your maybe core growth strategy, but we opportunities 

Tim: come 

Wes: along.

That's right. Now, 

Tim: now makes sense.

[00:45:18] Operational Principles and Structure

Tim: We were having an internal conversation that, you know, everyone sees us as 14 different restaurant. Right, right. Because we have those different concepts. When actuality we're, we're one restaurant company with. 14 different brands, but they're operated on the same principles.

Mm-hmm. I mean, my managers can look, I I, I, I learned this at Hillstone, so our structure and operating principles and our KPIs are all the same from store to store. Mm-hmm. The menu and the window address is different. So really the, if I, I can pop in and out managers at different locations and they just, they just need to catch up on the menu and, and, and then they can operate the same.

Our closing procedures, our opening procedures are the same. The way we want our staff are the same. The, the service standards are the same or very similar. So those types of things. 

Wes: Yeah. So that's interesting and, and seems to make sense. It. Replicatable, but it That's right. Slight 

Tim: different. Right? And when, 'cause everyone sees that they're, oh my God, they have different restaurant, which we do.

But when you start to peel back the layers, it's very similar. 

Wes: Yeah, 

Tim: that 

Wes: makes sense. 

[00:46:23] Successful Partnerships

Wes: Um, we talk a lot about, like on, on this podcast about successful partnerships and those that, you know, go the other direction. And I'm just curious as to what you've learned to watch out for in terms of, 'cause I, I believe that you, you know, you take on outside investors for your different concepts and it's not always the same, you know, capital stack for each one.

You know, what do you look out for and, and partners and, and what, what's maybe red flags that you've learned over the course of your career to, to sort of steer clear from when it comes to, you know, the partnerships and the alignments that you've, and that you put together? Well, 

Tim: again, so, so I've been very fortunate.

I've, I have, I have great partners and, and I think that, um, I don't really, if someone wants to become a, a partner with. Uh, with us, uh, you know, we just, we just wanna make sure that the reason they're getting into the restaurant business is the right reasons. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, this industry is riddled with, you know, the wrong reasons.

Right. The party atmospheres, the party environments, that, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And we just need to stress to our investors, which, and, and we have, and then they, they, they, I think they respect us is that this is a business, it's a business. It's not a party. We, yes, we host parties, but it, we run it as a business.

Mm-hmm. So you, you never see me walking around with a cocktail in my hand. You never see my team walking around with drinks. Yeah. This is just, no, this is not, you know, and we've had people who, who, uh, I have, I've had great clients that get upset, you know, that they're not, they're not [00:48:00] investors, but I've had clients.

Wanna buy me a drink and it's nine o'clock. And I'm like, listen, Noah, but thank you. You know? And they're like, oh, come on. And yeah, it's like, well, what do you do? I'm like, I'm well, I'm an attorney, okay, I'll tell you what, I'll see you Tuesday at 10:00 AM you, and I'll have a cocktail at your office. And then it kind of puts into perspective for 'em.

But, but we want, we just try to make sure it's a business first. And, uh, we've had some, we just, we've had some great partners and I will say that, you know, we don't bat a thousand, you know, and, and I think that what's important for us as partners is we don't like to surprise our partners. We give 'em the data to tell you how the, the restaurant's doing and, and we'll explain strategy.

And if you had, our investors have every right to call us about anything they want. And we, we will have an open conversation about what we're doing and how we're handling it. And if they have a different solution, we'll listen to that and we'll have a discussion around that. And, and I think. Partners go on both sides of the equation, right?

I mean, a good partnership is not just one partner being good to the other. It's two partners being good to each other, and that's what makes a great partnership. Now, I have a responsibility as an operator, and they have way less responsibility because they put their capital in. 

Music: Mm-hmm. 

Tim: But, but, uh, but you have to be a good partner on both sides.

Wes: And you guys have gone through the process of hiring proper attorneys to drop the documents and operating agreements that have, you know, are fully right. You've thought through all the different scenarios and, and your responsibility operators and Yeah. And your, and your investors and what rights they have and don't have.

And so you spent the money to make sure that all of those things have been Yeah, but I would say this, that it doesn't cover it all. No. 

Tim: If, if you're reaching into your file to pull out the operating agreement that that's a problem, something's wrong. Yeah. Okay. And, and no matter what was signed. A year, five years, 10 years before that, there's something where we are that you're pulling out the operating agreement and there's probably a lot of moments that we could have got to before you had to pull out the operating agreement to get to a resolution, in my opinion.

Right. I mean, yeah. 

Wes: Well, I, I think, um, I totally agree with that. I also think that, um, investors especially who aren't, you're in it every day, right. And you guys probably got these things memorized, but investors can be forgetful mm-hmm. In terms of Oh, sure. The processes and voting rights. And you know, what, if we have to do capital calls on those things where it's like to spend the money to do it properly, because many people don't.

Yeah. It may surprise you, but many people form partnerships and they have no operating agreement, no shareholder agreement. And well, you just, you wanna avoid conflict, especially you do if you're taking money from friends and family. Right. You don't want, here it is in the agreement. 

Tim: So, and I would say this, that, um.

And I think you can ask my investors this, is that I, we, as the restaurant, people really try to shield our partners from [00:51:00] what they didn't sign up for the operating agreement. Now, even when it comes to capital calls, we try, if we're going to a capital call at wit's end, normally we normally, there's a bunch of levers that we can turn off before we get to that before letter word.

Yeah. But, but uh, you know, but sometimes it just happens and, you know, you just work through it the best you can. I mean, there's no, I believe that what we, what TRP will never do will never be mischievous. It would never be do anything with fraud. It will never do anything that is slight of hand. We'll operate.

With the highest integrity until we can't. And then we have to go out to the, to partner and say, okay, this is, what do we want to do with capital? What do we wanna do with this business? That thing. So though, but, but there's a lot of, if we're pulling out the operating agreement, we've done something that, that, that we can't agree on.

And we've probably had a lot of different conversations before we got to that. 

Wes: Mm-hmm. 

Tim: Yeah. 

[00:51:57] Mentorship and Guidance

Wes: Um, Tim, what about, what about mentors? Has there been a mentor, mentors in your life to help get you 

Tim: where you're Absolutely. I think that I am such a firm, a big believer in mentorship. Uh, one, uh, Steve Hamos has been my mentor.

I, he has been the most valuable person in my world, I believe.

Wes: How long has, has that been? Two, about a 

Tim: year after we started, a year and a half after we started our business, about a year after we started our business. He was a, he was a long time guest of ours and, and, uh, he had Reed's River House at the time we started working together.

And he's been, as an entrepreneur, especially a young entrepreneur, you're figuring it out. Right. And you can't, you can't go to your investors and be like, I don't know what I'm doing. Okay. Because they've invested in you to say, here you are telling 'em you know what you're doing. And then, you know, situations come out, you may not know what you're doing, so you can't sit there and turn to them.

Music: Mm-hmm. 

Tim: You can't sit there and turn to your team. 'cause they're, you are the leader. So who do you turn to? Right? Yeah. You can read all the books you want, but there's no better sounding board than a person who has been through it or has experience with it. And so I find that, that, that. Information is so valuable and I, I try to mentor people as, uh, I pay it forward.

I think that I love to see young people that have a hustle and have an idea and are just grinding it out. And if I can help them sidestep a landmine or propel them forward, I'm always willing to do so. 

Wes: Where do you say that Steve has helped you the most? And where do you think that you've been the most helpful in the context of, I think we all excel or we have sort of our own superpowers and certainly we're all wired differently.

Yeah. Like, I'm curious as to where do you think that Steve had the biggest impression on you [00:54:00] and where, I mean, he Okay. 

Tim: There's so many places. It's hard. It's, and I'm not just bullshit. It, it is hard just to deal with one. I mean, from, from understanding the legalities of the business, meaning operating agreement leases, uh, um, just.

Uh, investors, partners, uh, you know, sure. Uh, just, you know, navigating the city with things. So many, so many aspects of it that, you know, I I, and he's always been a, a now over the years, our relationship has going very, very close. So he's always been a calm in all the storms from being sued in litigation to, you know, all kinds of stuff to where hurricanes pop up and my businesses are going to shit and will it come out this thing?

And COVID, I mean, you know, it's, talk about staring to the abyss, right? Yeah. You know, you get a phone call from the mayor who says you're shutting down a restaurant for two weeks, and you're like, what? Yeah. So, you know, there, there, it's, it's, it's always, it. Listen, it's, it's always nice to have. A coach, right?

A coach that you know, you can count on to say, Hey, am I doing this right? What should I be doing? And them, and, and, and having that relationship where, you know, they're gonna give you the unfiltered truth and it's yours to do with what you want. Right. 

Wes: And I think there's a component of they have your best interest at heart.

Yeah, absolutely. They, they want to see you. They wanna see. Absolutely. And that's part of their, you, you would even argue they in their legacy. 

Tim: No. You know, I would say I so many times, especially when I was young, where I'm negotiating these agreements with Steve and now he's, this is now he's an investor too.

Okay. Mm-hmm. And he's saying. No, you don't want to do that. That's giving me too much. That's you don't, you don't want me to have that control in this deal? Just not, because he's, if he was doing it for himself, he wouldn't have said anything. Yeah, 

Music: sure. 

Tim: I didn't, it was, it was in the agreement. It was already, I put it in the agreement.

He's like, I think he made me wanna think about this. You know, so that kinda stuff. 

Wes: Well that's neat. Um, I read a lot. I told you prior to the interview, the case studies about Steve. Yeah. Pals and you know, what he did, especially, he was in college, I think. Oh, he's an incredible story. Invented credit card insurance and just a level of entrepreneurship and maturity that I have a hard time imagining, uh, at, at that age.

Especially just comparing to myself, which is, um, but what would you say I is your sort of superpower that you bring, and sorry to be like, you know, way too metaphorical there, but I see you just knowing you as long as I have. You seem like a [00:57:00] very disciplined person. You're, you're like you said there, there's, I don't think you, you're not a big drinker.

You're up, you're, you're very much into fitness. Yep. You're always dressed well. Like, is that, do you think that that's part of what you were to bring is to help bring structure to the people that you're mentoring and helping them understand 

Tim: discipline? 'cause I think structure and discipline at the base is critical for any success in my mind.

Yeah. Okay. I, I, I have, I'm a big person of routine and structure and, and, and, and trying not to negotiate with my Everyday You negotiate with yourself. Yeah. And I'm gonna get up, am I gonna go work out? And I try my best not to negotiate, you know? And, and I try to do that personally, and that carries over into business.

If I don't allow myself to do that personally, it's gonna carry over into business. Yeah, sure. And, and I find that, that if you now. You're always gonna end up having a fallback day or something like that. Yeah. But the fewer of those, the better off you're gonna be. And if you can learn that negotiating with yourself is not gonna happen, then you can learn not to negotiate in how you do business.

When I say certain principles that you don't falter on how you treat your people. Yeah. How, how, you know, getting into the office at a certain time, having, because people follow your lead, right? Yeah. If you're a leader that is all over the board and doesn't see, you know, your, your, your team's gonna see that and they're, if it's okay with you, then it's gonna be okay with them.

And I'm not okay with that. 

Wes: Recently I've gone down this rabbit hole of watching, uh, old Nick Saban, like, I love that guy Leadership videos. And, and he, some people I think are really harsh on him and his legacy and his demeanor. I would say I. Find him a breath of fresh air because he's so direct and clear.

I love it. Specifically what I like about him is I, I feel like he's a guy. I've never, I met him, certainly don't have a relationship with a guy. You always know where you stand with him. There's never, I feel like we we're very poor as a society in dealing with conflict with him. He'll deal with conflict with you directly.

That's right. And honestly and respectfully might be a little firm, but like I, I find that very refreshing rather than somebody talking about me. I 

Tim: absolutely agree. 

Wes: But he, he boiled it down. And that's another thing I love is simplicity, where he said it boils down to two things. And when it comes to execution and discipline, leadership, you have these things that you don't wanna do, but you need to do 'em.

Are you gonna do 'em? That's right. And you have these things that you wanna do that you know you shouldn't do. How are you gonna refrain from doing that? That's right. And, and in his context, he's talking mainly about football players making involve all of us. 

Tim: You could do that with, just love that every, you could apply that principle to everything you do in your day.

And I, I, I agree with you. I love that guy. I don't like when we're playing against him. Yeah, yeah. But who does there, there is reasons why Nick Saban has been the most successful college football coach. Okay. And it's not because his recruiting, it's not because, yeah. It's not because he's cheating, [01:00:00]it's because of the whole thing.

Okay. Right. It's because of the way he ran his program. Okay. That's why he had the outcomes yet, uh, I, I love watching and learning from people who are at the top of their craft. A guy like Michael Jordan. Okay. I've watched, I kid you not, I've watched the last dance. Over a, the 10 part series over a dozen times.

Oh really? That's amazing. Okay. And every time I get something more out of it, because you know, you have a guy to, to stay at that level for that long. Yeah. To have your team stay at that level. They didn't wanna stay at that level. He forced them to be at that level. Mm-hmm. You know, and, and you're gonna have some collateral damage with that.

You're gonna get a reputation of being a jerk aggressive. But if you look at the results, those were non-negotiables to get to that level. You know, a guy like Kobe Bryant, those guys had the ultimate resolve because they were committed to a goal that they set for themselves, that no one was gonna touch them from getting, you know, and, and the, the, the, the body of work that they had to do to get 'em there.

Not other, no 

Wes: other people were willing to do that. Yeah. Michael was a guy that. I think played with it. Something to prove even after none of us we're already convinced, you know? That's right. And so that was what I liked about him the most. Like he, he, he felt like he played with something, something to prove, like it chip on his shoulder and it was just never going to be enough for him.

And so, um, yeah. Jordan's, Jordan's a great one. 

[01:01:46] Community Involvement and Giving Back

Wes: Um, so we talk about mentorship, but I've also noticed you're very much involved in the community and various nonprofits and charities. What, what drives you there? What is your, what would you say your passion is to give back and, and why? 

Tim: Again, I think that, uh, first off, I, I, I love Fort Lauderdale.

I love this community. I think I, I raise my kids here. I ultimately would love to see them come back here, raise their families. I don't know if they're gonna do that. 

Wes: Yeah. 

Tim: But, but I, I just think it's a great place to live. And I think that if you're not giving back to the community, I, I, I just think it's something that we all should, should do.

I mean, I, I believe, yeah, it's a core value of our company. I, I, we we're heavily involved in local charities with a strong emphasis on Jack and Jill. 'cause it serves an under underprivileged population. But, but I think it's important. I think it's, it, it, it's important and I think it's a great way to express what culture is in your company.

If you're out in the community giving back and mm-hmm. You know, I just think it's important. Plus, that's amazing. A, a desired outcome from that is, especially for young people, I didn't, now this is a, this is something that I didn't get involved in charitable work [01:03:00] for this, but this was a nice outcome that I didn't realize.

You get to meet great community leaders and then you get to develop these wonderful relationships that on a more personal level than just being in a business environment and, and, and a lot of opportunities come through those connections, you know? Yeah, sure. I, I mean 

Wes: this guy's kinda like one hand washes the other, right?

Well, it's like you're doing the right thing, Jen. You're helping give back and, you know, contributing to the community. Well, I will say 

Tim: this, if, if I'm in boardroom with someone, you know. Working on charitable events and I'm on my monthly board meeting and I'm out there socially with them. I'm getting to know you on a personal level and all of a sudden, Hey Tim, I have this over here.

Would you be interested in that? The negotiation with that is a lot more friendly. You cut through the, you know, this posturing mm-hmm. And you get to a deal a lot faster, with a lot less headaches and a lot less expense. Right. And, and that, that's, that's through a relationship. That relationship was created through a charity and, and your, your reputation through that charity is different than your reputation through the business.

So you approach to a different manner. 

Wes: Yeah, 

Tim: sure. So that's kinda, 

Wes: you know, you're building bridges really. Yeah. And, and rapport. And, and, and certainly there's. I think there's a comfort level with familiarity. Yeah, there is. You know? 

[01:04:20] Succession Planning

Wes: And so, um, just sort of looking ahead, how do you think about succession planning at, you know, with your, your role and ownership in TRP?

Is that something that you've put thought into? Yes. Oh yeah. 

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And, 

Wes: and what 

Tim: does that look like? So, so right now we are, um, we are doing that exercise right now. Uh, we've hired a person to come in a, a, uh, kind of corporate strategist mm-hmm. To help us kind of. Look at that, uh, Aaron, who, you know Aaron Moff?

Mm-hmm. I've elevated him to present now of the company. 

Wes: Okay. Uh, 

Tim: he will, he is tagged to succeed me at CEO when I, that time is right. When that time is, I'm not sure, but we are setting it up to where it's a, uh, 'cause we're, you know, right now we have a lot on the map too, so we wanna make sure we are growing at the paces that we don't, we can grow effectively and efficiently too.

So, um, so we're working that out now and I think that's very important. I think that if you don't have a plan with anything Yeah. If you don't have a plan, you just don't have a plan and you shouldn't be planning anything. Right. So when, when I say I say that jokingly, but if, if you're, if you're growing and you don't have a plan that's falling underneath that you shouldn't be growing, you know?

Yeah. I, I, I, there's a lot of people that come into me like, oh, I've got this going on. I got this going on. And then. 

[01:05:46] Challenges in the Restaurant Industry

Tim: Opening restaurants is the easiest thing in the world. Okay. All you need is money. Okay. Keeping 'em open is where it gets really hard. Okay. Yeah. And so you, all these people, oh, I'm opening this.

Well, that's great. Okay. Then you ask 'em, well, how are you gonna keep 'em open? Okay. [01:06:00]Where's your infrastructure? How are you gonna execute these things? How, and we, I meet with a lot of people that have a great growth plan, but they have no plan on how to keep 'em open. So, which is, which is interesting. 

Wes: It seems like there are a lot of like sort of boom and bust cycles with restaurants or just being the new hotspot and then Yeah.

You know, sort of just not able to stay on top with the execution or whatever. 

Tim: Yeah. The, the, the honeymoon period is the easiest part, right? Yeah. That is, and people start to, everybody wants to go to the hot new spot. Every, you know, when you open your doors. If you do a good mar, if you have a, we know that at the restaurant people, if we're gonna open our doors, we're gonna get hit right away.

So that makes it more challenging too, because as you build a brand, people have a certain expectation and, and there's still are nuances and how to execute with new news teams, right? Mm-hmm. So we have to execute outta the gate probably because our guest is less forgiving. Their, our expectation is that we're gonna deliver.

Okay? So even if it's two weeks old, we need to deliver where, and we get hit really hard. And that just, so we have to make sure we have our teams trained. We have to do a lot of things about pacing the restaurant to make sure you don't have, get the staff overwhelmed. It, it's, it's a lot of stuff that goes into a restaurant opening.

And, uh, knock on wood, we get hit hard. Hopefully we're executing where they want to come back and tell their friends. And that's what, yeah, that's what the goal is. 

Wes: No, that's great. Certainly a higher bar than a mom pa that opens a, you know, a pizza shop. People are coming to you and they're, but now with social 

Tim: media, you'd be surprised on how well these mom and Pops could open, you know?

I mean Yeah. 

Wes: You know, I just mean the expectation Sure. Is different. Like, 

Tim: oh, you know, 

Wes: it's crazy how George and Betty opened a place and, you know, like, go check it out. I am 

[01:07:57] The Power of Social Media

Tim: getting, I, I'm, I, I, it's somewhat just so surprising how you see some of these places take off with, like, they launched on TikTok and they are 

Wes: just booming.

What's the, this guy with the steakhouse all over the world, the Salt Bay guy, and he sells these 

Tim: gold stakes, and now he's blowing up though, right now he's, I mean, blowing up in a bad way. Imploding. Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah. So he, again, he got out front of a, I think at the end of the day, you can't have, there has to be some substance, not all sizzle, right?

Yeah, right. You know, a lot of these places get with all this sizzle, and then below that is, you know. Not substance. And then they're like, why did I just waste all this money facade and a lot of pumping. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but there's this, I mean, there's a, there's a chicken Caesar wrap place in Boca that has lines around the building.

It really launched a, I'll tell you a funny story about social media real quick. Okay. So we, we, the slamming Tomahawk, we launched this thing about three years now at yolo. And it was a, i, I saw it at a [01:09:00] steakhouse in Vegas. I said, this is the coolest thing. 

Wes: It sounds amazing 

Tim: for, for, you know, I, I listen the restaurant business, the only thing original about the restaurant business is the swinging doors and the saloon.

Everything else has taken from somebody else. It's seen, it's, you know, so, so we've taken some inspirations, let's call it from other places. So we saw this, uh, this role flaming Tomahawk. I thought this thing was gonna take off. It, it, it was, it was, uh. Hardly anything going. Right. We launched it, we're doing like three or four a week.

I'm like, oh my God, this is terrible. Yeah. So we got to the point where, and to each one of those carts cost us like 3000 bucks to get a custom built. So we have an investment in this. We, we got three carts. We got this whole team, we got equipment to cook this, this, uh, this Tom Hawkin, the whole nine yards.

We're doing like four or five a week. So I go to my marketing director. I'm like, we gotta boost this up. So she's like, I, okay. I have an influencer coming in. Now I'm thinking, you see influencer, you have this certain, yeah, yeah. Person in your mind is in this? No, it's a food influencer, food blogger. Uh, her name is Gigi.

She's a sweetheart of a girl. She brings in her mom, and she's, she's doing, I'm like, I'm like, okay, Nikki, are you, this is, this is what? She's like, let's wait. She launches that thing and within two weeks we've got a million views. We have people coming in from, that's insane. From Jupiter driving in to get it.

I saw that. So last year we almost did a million dollars worth of Tom Hawk sales. So think about that. It's incredible. Think about that. And it was social media, sort of viral. It's viral. It's crazy how powerful is imagine. And it could work against you. No, and the thing is, it could work against you too.

You know, you get caught on the wrong side of the, of a discussion or an event or something like that. You're like, so 

Wes: it's where do we live in? So that's amazing. Great. What a great story. 

[01:10:52] Lessons from Failure

Wes: Um, one of my favorite parts of doing this, 30 years of doing this, you could go back the beginning of your journey and give yourself some advice.

What would that look like? What would it be, uh, 

Tim: if you could bypass some of the heartache that you'd experienced? A couple things. A couple things. Don't beat yourself up too much. Don't, don't, don't have so much negative self-talk and move faster. 

Wes: What do you mean by move faster? You know, I think that like, like 

Tim: move on from failures faster or I think all of the above.

Yeah. I, I think, I think we've sat on some opportunities and, and, uh, we didn't move as fast, uh, as we should have and we were on, we got on the wrong side of a trend. 

Wes: Yeah. 

Tim: You know, I mean that's, that's, uh, that happens. And I think that if you would, if you move faster with things, you know, a lot of times what was the reason you don't move is self-doubt.

And you start, you start, uh, listening. Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. You start listening to all the negative self-talk and things like that. And if you cut that out, I think you would make a decision faster and move on or not. [01:12:00] Yeah. Either do it or don't do it. Right. Yeah. 

Wes: Well you've watched the Michael Jordan thing enough, but there's so many other endless examples of successful people that have failed many times.

Absolutely. And I read Phil Knight's book, shoe Dog. Oh yeah. I was like, that was one banking catastrophe after. It just because the guy did well doesn't mean he didn't have challenges and failures and all those things. So I that's, that is a really encouraging thing if you think about it, right? Like you can actually fail and actually still succeed in the long run.

So I think the reality, reality of 

Tim: business is you fail way more than you succeed. You just, your successes, there's a bunch of failures that happen on the way to success, right? And the success is what's paramount. But there is no success without failure. I don't care who you are, that person has, has failed somewhere along the way because they're successful because they learn from their failures.

Wes: Yeah, absolutely. 

[01:12:55] Favorite Meals and Restaurants

Wes: Um, as we do our little rapid fire at the end, like we do, what's your, what's your go-to meal? Best meal? A best restaurant, let's say. 

Tim: Well, okay. It's, it's, it's, it's Italian 'cause I'm Italian there. Yeah. Right. So, so it's, I, my, I love the lasagna at. Anthony's runway. Yeah. And I love the chicken cacia tore at Cafe Morano, so Oh yeah.

So if I go out to dinner, I'm going to one of those places typically. I mean, 'cause I'm, I'm a, I'm in restaurants. 

Wes: Yeah. I, I, Italian is a, a great choice for me too. I, I am not Italian, but I love that food. And for me, I'm a simple chicken parm guy. Oh yeah. How can you execute a chicken parm is how I'm gonna judge you as a restaurant.

But it's usually not too hard to make it at least good. Yeah. Right. But great is really different. Anthony's is one where I've had it. They're 

Tim: they're What about you? What's yours? Go 

Wes: to that, that's, um, it, it probably is Italian. 

Tim: Yeah. For, for real, for me it's, 'cause that's what my, my mom and 

Wes: garlic bread.

Yeah. 

Tim: It's just comforting. Just, 

Wes: it just, but it's also the culture to me. It's just always feels like family. Yeah. And celebration and around the table. And, um, that's a big part of it for me. Um, one thing I like to do at home is I've done seafood boils for large s 

Tim: Oh dude, that's fun. Yeah. We put on the table the camp outs.

Yeah. 

Wes: With the butcher paper and roll your seeds. Any princess 

Tim: You do that in Asian princess. 

Wes: Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, I just love doing that. Just the unpretentious and yeah. And approachability of just a boil and eating, you know, everybody's shoulder to shoulder. But right 

Tim: there, 

Wes: what you 

Tim: just 

Wes: said 

Tim: is the core of restaurants, it's the community, it's sharing, it's the, the, the way people interact.

Yeah. That is the heart and soul of why people go into restaurants. 

Wes: Well, I think that you've harnessed that. Experience very, very well in an industry that's so challenging. It's inspiring for me to see. And, um, thank you. Love to, [01:15:00] love to hear the story. It's been so interesting. 

[01:15:02] Dream Cars and Closing Remarks

Wes: In closing, we always do this, but we're here at Rebel Motor Company who has graciously allowed us to use the facility.

Yeah, it's very cool. Can see in the background if you've got one dream car that they can, they can bring in for you. Rest mod for you, what, what would it be that's a fit for your personality and Hmm. And lifestyle and all of that. 

Tim: Well, some of these old Ford Broncos, that one down there is pretty damn cool.

There's a few, yeah, there's a few 

Wes: of those for sure. Yeah, I know. Is it nostalgic or is it muscle or Yeah, it's more 

Tim: nostalgic. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm not considered a, I like nice cars, but I don't, I'm not a car junkie. Yeah. I know how to turn it on and drive, you know. But, uh, I like the older cars as they're done really well.

You've got some killer cars in here though? 

Wes: We've got a whole, yeah, we've got new Porsches and old Broncos and we've got my little 69 Fastback Mustang. Oh yeah. Someday is gonna be a reality, but, um, that's awesome. No, it is a very cool space though. Thank, enjoy Tim Trillo. Well enjoy being here. Thank you.

Thanks for coming in. Thank you. It's awesome to have 

Tim: you. Great to see you. Thank you. Alright. That was fun.