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The meez Podcast
Josh Sharkey (Entrepreneur, professional chef, and founder/CEO of meez, the culinaryOS for food professionals) interviews world class entrepreneurs in the food space that are shifting the paradigm of how we innovate and operate in our industry.
The meez Podcast
Michel Falcon on Scaling Brasa Peruvian Kitchen, Smart Investing, and Building Winning Teams
#87. In this episode, we sit down with Michel Falcon, restaurateur, author, and keynote speaker, to explore his journey from launching the first Brasa location to building a brand synonymous with Peruvian flavor and excellence. Michel shares insights from his early days opening store number one, securing his first investor, and considering private equity funding.
Drawing from his time at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Michel reveals how principles like Talent Density and the Traffic Light Model shape his approach to scaling Brasa and developing a winning team culture. We also dive into Brasa's unique hotline, and the secrets of Peruvian cuisine
Finally, Michel opens up about the questions he wishes people would ask more often and discusses his book, a must-read for anyone in hospitality.
Where to find Michel Falcon:
Where to find Brasa
Where to find host Josh Sharkey:
In this episode, we cover:
(02:50): What it was like opening store number one
(06:46): Thinking about PE money
(09:25): Michel's first investor
(16:42): Michel's experience working at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
(20:01): Talent Density
(26:02): The Traffic Light Model
(32:18): Brasa's Hotline
(39:33): What people don't know about Peruvian food
(42:26): Going down the high protein rabbit hole
(47:31): Questions Michel wished he would get more often
(49:47): Michel's book
[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey:
Investors want to hear the good and the bad, you know, like I think, I think a lot of people make the mistake of just sharing the good and then, you know, they know that there's bad.
[00:00:09] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, and bad compounds. So if you are not communicating it nearly in the moment, then that bad will compound and you have a much more grave story to share.
[00:00:22] Josh Sharkey:
You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate.
[00:00:42]
And how they consistently execute at a high level, day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a 5 star review. Anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky. Anywhere works. But I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show.
[00:01:03]
Yeah, so you live in New York now. What's that like, man? What has it been for you? Transition.
[00:01:09] Michel Falcon:
Pretty natural, Vancouver to Toronto was good for me because Toronto moves faster than Vancouver does. And then Toronto kind of figured it out and, uh, just saw more opportunity in New York. Seamlessly kind of just blended in, same with my wife too. We both like move really quickly, we move with urgency, so it's good for us.
[00:01:34] Josh Sharkey:
Toronto is a, like a big city that you gotta drive there or like, you know, it's, it's, it takes a while to get to places.
[00:01:40] Michel Falcon:
It's big, but it's not dense. Yeah, well that's true. Yeah. Right? Whereas New York, especially for our business, or any type of retail really, like the density is paramount.
[00:01:50]
Toronto's great. It did serve me really, really well. The business does well there. But New York was always the plan. Actually, technically, Los Angeles was the plan first, but then geographically from Toronto, too far, too far. And I heard Kava's CEO once say that it was a mistake going to LA as their second market, outside of DC, I think it was.
So, New York, know a lot of people here.
[00:02:14] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, people definitely underestimate the importance of proximity when you first start to scale. So you have three Brasa in, in Canada and one here?
[00:02:25] Michel Falcon:
Exactly. Yeah. And then just last week on my birthday, I signed our fifth lease. So we're going to be in Astoria in Queens. Oh, amazing, man. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm excited. And happy birthday. Yes. I appreciate it. I have this thing that every day on my birthday, I want to do something. So the year before, you know, a few years before that, I released my book on my birthday. Uh, and this year I signed a 10 year old financial obligation.
[00:02:50] Josh Sharkey:
Yup. Like a lease. Yeah. Um, all right. So, so you're now on, you've done four stores, you're on the fifth. Yep. What was, I mean, I have a lot of painful memories of this. What was it like opening store one? Tell me how that felt now that you're 44.
[00:03:06] Michel Falcon:
Well, location number one was with a multi multi billion dollar real estate company, Brookfield. And, but before that. To prove product market fit, we did a pop up in a sub market of Toronto, and that was great learning curve, figured out that we had product market fit, saw the stickiness of the product, um.
[00:03:35] Josh Sharkey:
How long did you do the pop up for?
[00:03:37] Michel Falcon:
Year and a half, actually, because then it ended up being our commissary kitchen for a while.
[00:03:44]
Then we shut that down, and then in December 2021, we opened the first retail location. So the pop up started in July 2021, December 2021. Think of the timeline, that's like, Middle pandemic for Toronto, Toronto, outside of China. My understanding is Toronto is the most locked down city in the world. Yeah.
[00:04:06]
Yeah. Right. Toronto was tough. Three lockdowns, maybe four, which was unheard of for any major metropolitan city. That was the hardest thing that I've ever done in my career is navigating that. Plus. Food costs rising, construction costs rising, like our millwork costs shot through the roof like 50%, something that you can't really forecast for.
[00:04:31]
So it was extraordinarily challenging, but I will say, Brookfield, as our partner, you look at a company like that, so big, and such, in, in massive asset classes. Their level of hospitality in Toronto was four seasons like if they were not our real estate partner for location number one, I don't know if I'd be here sitting as sitting here with you talking about BRASA because the pandemic was, you know, brutal for everybody.
[00:04:59]
Now the reason they were so understanding with what was happening, uh, to the market, very hospitable, constantly checking in on us, how's operations going. I'm very fortunate that they were our first real estate partner. Was it a, like a food hall or how did that? It is in the largest office tower in Toronto called First Canadian place.
[00:05:21]
So we're in a concourse Monday to Friday. 8am to 4pm, perfect way to start the brand, because we didn't have the obligation of the evening business and the weekend, so we could have a concentrated focus, and that proved that office is really good for our business. Our first location in New York is in 1 New York Plaza, another Brookfield owned office tower where Morgan Stanley is the anchor tenant, and once again we proved our office in another metropolitan city.
[00:05:52]
Now we will continue to prove out different sub markets because I don't want Brassa just to be like the office tenant We have to prove it out and we have in Toronto and we'll continue to do so with our next location being in Astoria, Queens, which is more of a suburban market. So we'll see how we do there.
[00:06:11] Josh Sharkey:
I'm curious. There's a reason why You don't want to double down on the thing that you see working really well.
[00:06:17] Michel Falcon:
We will. We will. But I don't want to pigeonhole ourselves. You know, if we go to private equity to go raise money to scale, and we've only proved out one model, that's going to hurt our valuation.
[00:06:28]
I know and I expect them to say, you haven't proven out multiple markets, so therefore your valuation is X. Whereas if I can prove out different sub markets in different cities. in two countries, then that would be advantageous for us. Got it.
[00:06:43] Josh Sharkey:
So you're already thinking sort of like what the PE sort of exercise will be here.
[00:06:46] Michel Falcon:
Yeah. So in 2021, after the pop up opened, I, I knew that one day I would need PE money to scale. And that was a choice. It's not for everybody. Right. And I'm not saying it's the be all end all of growing, but for me, I feel comfortable with it. I picked up the phone and I actually hired an MBA student in Toronto named Colton.
[00:07:07]
And I said, uh, put me together a list of every single PE fund that has invested in restaurants in the last 90 days. Get me the contact information of the managing partner or managing director. And he did. And I just cold, cold. these firms. And two in particular, one was Danny Meyer's fund, EHI, Enlightened Hospitality Investments.
[00:07:33]
And I'm not, this is an extension of the truth. My words were, I don't need your money now, but I will one day. Can I build a relationship with you and tell you what the brand's about? And can you follow along? Because we probably aren't going to meet your investment mandate right now, which was true. And I was transferred to somebody named Paulina at EHI.
[00:07:58]
Based in New York, and we've grown a relationship for the past two years, educating me on what it's like to accept PE money, what they look for, what's their investment mandate. And the other firm was Capital Spring, based in Los Angeles. And Eric Herman answered the phone, or I emailed him actually, and he responded within minutes.
[00:08:22]
I remember the subject line, it said, profitable restaurant company based in Toronto. And I'm good at running an email subject line site, uh, to get emails opened. And I exchanged emails with him about a couple weeks ago too. So what, I believe it was Eric said this, but he said, uh, I wish I got phone calls like this more often because sometimes we get phone calls in our space where the Company needs money in 30 days.
[00:08:52]
For me, it's like, no, I want to build a relationship with you. And if my company has a value proposition great enough, I should want to build a relationship with them as well, too, to make sure that they're the right fit for me rather than just take money from anybody, which could be disastrous. And as a matter of fact, I've heard of stories from colleagues and peers and friends where it has been disastrous for them. Getting the wrong person on a cab table could be, uh, Can be quite difficult.
[00:09:17] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's definitely important to have the right folks on your cap table. So how have you funded the business to date? Prince and family. Oh, that's great. And net profit. Yeah.
[00:09:25] Michel Falcon:
Could I tell your story about how I met my first investor? All right. So this is likely in May, 2021 and before fast casual restaurants. I owned full service restaurants with my partners at the time in Toronto. We grew from zero to nearly 20 million in sales and 200 employees in like a year and a half. This was pre pandemic starting in 2017, but we had this one flagship location called Borrow.
[00:09:55]
It still exists and my partners run it, but I'm no longer involved in it. I had nothing but time during the pandemic. So I said before the pop up opened, I wanted to welcome friends and family to try the menu. So I asked my partners, I said, hey, do you mind if I use the third floor periodically every week?
[00:10:14]
I want to feed a couple people, two people at a time because social distancing was a thing. And I invited two people. Raj, And my friend Dave and Raj was an investor at the time he had contributed funds and I get a phone call like minutes before we're supposed to start the tasting from Dave and he's outside and he says, Hey, do you mind if I bring my friend Steve up?
[00:10:39]
And I was like, Dave, like, you know, like really like two person maximum social distancing, all that. And I said, you know what? Just bring him up. I had no idea who he was. So we're sitting. eating round table like this. I'm narrating the story, the vision of the brand, what the growth plans are. And Raj takes his last bite of his meal.
[00:11:02]
And he says, I have to tell you like as an investor, this is phenomenal. And Steve lifts up his head and he says, you're raising. I said, I am. He said, send me an investor deck, get his email. And then as soon as they leave, maybe 30 minutes after Dave calls me and I guess he's no longer with Steve. And he says, Oh wow.
[00:11:20]
Steve's interested in investing in Brasa. And I said, yeah, who is he? And he's like, just Google his first and last name. So I do. And I learned that a couple of years before that he had sold his company for two or three billion dollars. He was the first billion dollar cannabis exit in Canada. Imagine if I had said no to, uh, him coming up for that meal, uh, I wouldn't have my largest investor today and I wouldn't have him as a mentor and I've learned a lot from him.
[00:11:47]
That he has been, uh, kind of my anchor when it comes to fundraising, but also mentor and an educator. What do you learn from him about finances? Securities and capital structure I learned from him. You know, how to set this all up, board structure, what do board meetings look like, never had to host a board meeting before, what's a, I never knew what a convertible note was until he uh, educated me, didn't know what a data room was, like I, I come from a humble beginning South American family, like never had to raise money before in my life, it's just all kind of self taught.
[00:12:21]
self taught, but then had individuals like him point me in the right direction and say, you need to learn how to set up a data room. All right, go to Google. What is a data room? And then just start from there. When it comes to the finance and accounting stuff, I have another mentor and a close friend named Malim.
[00:12:37]
I have a childhood friend named James as our fractional CFO. Uh, I know a few things really well, extremely well, and everything else, I surround myself with experts, and they educate me on it because I, I, I'm a very strong believer that each individual is truly unique. Excellent at two or three things.
[00:12:59]
When you try to boil the ocean, when it comes to your education, you're really going to dilute your efforts. So I know what I'm great at. And then for the things that are my blind spots, I find people who are experts in that and they compliment me.
[00:13:11] Josh Sharkey:
That's great. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about, you know, the big takeaway so far from, uh, from Steven, he's your lead investor, he's obviously had a big exit.
[00:13:19]
Strategically, what's the biggest takeaway you've had from him that you didn't understand or know or grasp before meeting him that now, independent of some of these more tactical kind of like, you need to have a data room, you need to understand what a convertible node or a safe node is, like, is there anything strategically that you've learned from him a takeaway that you didn't really understand that you do more fully now?
[00:13:40] Michel Falcon:
The one that comes to mind immediately is our ESOP, so our employee stock option plan. It's not in place at the time of this recording. It's not in place. But what he did say to me was he said as CEO, you have to be the company's best recruiter and we need to equip you with some tools to be able to get the best people to help grow Brasa so that they can cover your blind spots and you can focus on the things that you need to focus on.
[00:14:03]
As an investor, ultimately he's going to be diluted because of that, whatever portion or tranche that we carve out for the, for the ESOP. And I said, and you're cool with that? He's like, of course I'm cool with that. I'm willing to give up a little bit to bring the right people to help scale, help you scale this.
[00:14:23]
So I would think that ESOP is something that he is, suggested to me that was eye opening, but also kind of refreshing that he's, you know, not this capitalistic person. That's an equity hog. It was like, I'm willing to. You know, make sure that we have the right people. Aside from that, just helping me think of who are the right people to join us as investors and what does that criteria look like.
[00:14:49]
I have a criteria for who I want to work with on our team. You know, the culture fit, making sure they're adhering to values, high performance. Um, but when it comes to who comes on our cap table, making sure that we have a criteria for that as well, too, like can't be a jerk. You have to be willing to be on the sidelines.
[00:15:07]
And what I mean by that is I left my last partnership in the full service restaurants for a couple of reasons. And I'm still cordial with, and with my partners, uh, former partners today. But one of the things that I want to do with Brasa is I wanted this vision for this company to come out of me. And what I don't want is investors getting in my way.
[00:15:27]
Now with what Steve has told me, he said, over communicate and perform and nobody's going to get in your way. And that's direction that I could take and follow. It has been very advantageous in that, you know, and I'm being very sincere in the three years of the company. I have not had one investor call, email, or text me and ask me how their investment is doing.
[00:15:53]
Because the 15th of every month, right. Massive email investor update. P&Ls attached, balance sheet attached to over communicate. So those are, you know, that's the long winded way of some of the things that Steve has done.
[00:16:08] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, that's great. I wholeheartedly believe that, that as well. You just over communicate. And also, performing of course is important, but I think just being overly transparent about what's going on. Investors want to hear the good and the bad. You know, like, I think, I think a lot of people, uh, make the mistake of just sharing the good. For sure. And then, uh, You know, they know that there's bad.
[00:16:29] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, and bad compounds. So if you are not communicating it nearly in the moment, then that bad will compound and you have a much more grave story to share. Uh, and so I agree with you on that.
[00:16:42] Josh Sharkey:
Great, well, you know, I think a lot of what I was going to ask you about today was just about some of your hiring and employed practices, because it seems like it's a pretty big part of not just, uh, your company, but what your passion is.
[00:16:55]
Thanks. Before we do that though, you told me that you worked for 1-800GOTJUNK, which is a pretty incredible company, um. Phenomenal. They've grown, uh, you know, a ton, and you were there for a long time, like eight years. So, there has to be some pretty big takeaways that you, that you have from that, that experience.
[00:17:13] Michel Falcon:
Well, I don't think we have the time for me to describe every single lesson. So, and, and that's a testament to my real world MBA that was 1-800GOTJUNK. I talk about them very frequently because it was that impactful.
[00:17:27] Josh Sharkey:
Why does that, why does that company work? Well, what is it about 1-800 GOTJUNK that works?
[00:17:31] Michel Falcon:
It’s authentic. It's genuine. It's, it's an entrepreneurial success story through and through. It has entrepreneurship just seeping out of its pores. It's profitable. It's admired. It's a whole bunch of good things and having a front row seat. So watching that growth in my early 20s when I'm very impressionable, I was a wide eyed young person just, you know, going home being like, I can't believe I'm getting paid to learn as opposed to academia paying to learn.
[00:18:05]
You know, that could even be questionable. Um, you know, the slogan of the company is, it's all about the people. And that is something that is embedded in the DNA of the company. I would believe in Canada, they were one of the pioneers of popularizing company culture. Not just as like mission statements and values, but like, how do you take that and drive performance within the company to operate something that is admired and profitable?
[00:18:36]
And revered by franchise partners. You know, suppliers, customers, and employees at head office. The entrepreneurship that I learned from Brian Scudamore at an early age is some of the things that I'm applying at Brassa Proving Kitchen right now. There's a lot of things like inspect what you expect. You have a system or process, whatever that might be.
[00:18:58]
Maybe your training modules. In any business, how you survey customers, your level of customer service, and you'll have KPIs to match that, you know, it's a practice where for me every quarter and on occasion every month, I will pick a system or process that I have within my business and quietly look under the hood when nobody's watching just to make sure that it is functioning the way it is supposed to function.
[00:19:23]
So, for example, at. Brasa, we want to respond to every catering request within one business hour. We're working toward making that 10 business minutes. So I will go quietly, check our dashboard, and see, okay, how fast are we actually responding? And I get that, those data points given to me every single week, but, um, I'll, I'll take a look, peek in, and if I see what I don't like, I have to ask myself, questions and the team questions of like, why is it that we're not adhering to that KPI? So that's what inspect what you expect means.
[00:20:01] Josh Sharkey:
You also mentioned something about talent density.
[00:20:05] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, it's something I learned from Netflix. So if you, if anybody listening or watching, is interested in a book. I highly recommend the book No Rules Rules by Aaron Meyer and Reed Hastings, the former CEO of Netflix.
[00:20:20]
Talent density essentially means pay people more, have fewer people. Now, these individuals who you pay more are equal to one and a half people. It's actually profitable to pay more because these individuals lower your labor cost because you just have less people. Now the trick to this though is that you have to manage performance weekly.
[00:20:47]
Forget about yearly reviews or quarterly reviews, it's a weekly process. Now that sounds very laborious, and it is, but I rather put in the effort and have lower labor percentage and pay people more. Which is probably what it is. Like that's the best recruitment tool any company can have. And that's something that we're proud of at Brasa.
[00:21:13]
Uh, if you go to our location in New York or in Toronto, there's a decal on our sneeze guard that says we, on average, we pay 21 percent more than our industry peers. That's never going to go out of fashion of being the employer that pays the most. And this net, net out when I, I thought of talent density, when I read that book, I said, would this apply in restaurants?
[00:21:40]
And I ran it by some industry peers and they were like, I don't think that's going to work. I could implode the whole company.
[00:21:48] Josh Sharkey:
What are the biggest challenges to applying it to restaurants?
[00:21:48] Michel Falcon:
Nothing. There was nothing. Because it's human nature. People wanting to be paid what they're worth. Whether you're an engineer at Netflix or a frontline team member at a restaurant, it's just human behavior and human nature to want to be paid what you are worth.
[00:22:09]
The biggest challenge for restaurants or, or any technology company or, or anybody that wants to apply talent density within their business is making sure everybody is moving in the same direction. Now, if you and I are on the same team earning the same amount, but Michelle's not keeping up to Josh's performance.
[00:22:29]
And we allow that to happen, then that isn't talent density. Josh comes to work regretting that he has to work alongside Michelle. They're paid the same amount, but Josh has to pull up his socks a little higher because Michelle's lagging behind. Now if that's, you know, happens one week, so be it. Some people have challenges and, and, uh, they may not be able to perform.
[00:22:51]
That week for whatever, whatever the reason, but if that's habitual, the Michelle needs to get off the team. So that's the biggest challenge for not just restaurants. Anybody.
[00:23:02] Josh Sharkey:
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[00:23:14]
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[00:23:48]
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[00:24:13]
We're a tech company. At meez, it's obviously not a restaurant. I'm a huge believer in less is more with people. Uh, because obviously the more people you have, also the more controls you have to have in place, the more There's a book I love that I tell everybody to read that has nothing to do with restaurants, although they talk about restaurants.
[00:24:30]
It's called the mythical man month. And, uh, it's a great book, uh, just about organizational structure and really productivity. And one of the premises that they back into is that there's linear tasks and nonlinear tasks. And there are just many tasks in which adding more people does not speed it up. Uh, I mean, the easiest example is that, you know, It takes nine months, you know, a child, uh, you can't add two women and make a baby in less time.
[00:25:01]
But that's a more of just like an extreme example of highlighting linear tasks versus non linear. And oftentimes I think we apply the idea that like, add more people, paid less, and we'll get it done faster and cheaper. And I totally agree. It just doesn't happen.
[00:25:18] Michel Falcon:
Well, also think about your personal life. I know for myself, as I've gotten older, my relationships have become richer, but fewer. There's less people in my life, but those relationships are more rich and meaningful. When you're building a team, you don't want the most amount of people. I don't want the most amount of people in my personal life.
[00:25:39]
Because if you're truly going to build rapport with people on your team and be a coach and a mentor, you can't do that for that many people. That's when you start saturating your efforts, uh, with diminishing returns. We can run a Brasa with seven people and hit our revenue and hit all the metrics we need to hit.
[00:26:02]
Much better than 14 to 21, depending on the size of the, uh, the business. Of course, what's the traffic light model. I think you mentioned that before. Yeah. It's how we manage performance on a weekly basis, Thursday at 3PM, my operations management team get together and go through every single team members performance for the week before and it's rapid fire.
[00:26:29]
So you'll go through the payroll list. Brain means. They're doing exceptionally well and we ask ourselves, do they need a raise? Do they need a promotion? We're asking it every single week because I have left a company before. I was a dishwasher at a restaurant in the 10th grade. I left because one, I was the best dishwasher that they had.
[00:26:55]
They neglected me. I asked for a 50 cent raise. They said no. And I left. Imagine losing a high performer over 50 cents an hour. What does that cost to replace them? You know, a thousand X sounds like this is somewhat personal to you too. Yeah, it was. And that was a long time ago, but I don't want people to leave my company who are high performers over X amount.
[00:27:24]
So do they need a promotion? Do they need a raise? That way, we stop ourselves from losing great people. Yellow.
[00:27:34] Josh Sharkey:
Sorry, just before we go to yellow, because I'm picturing this as a red, yellow, green. Yeah. I'm assuming that part of that, because you can't give a promotion every week to somebody, there's also just praise, right?
[00:27:46] Michel Falcon:
For sure. Yeah. So when we onboard you, so you've been hired, we send you a link, you fill out this form. It's our intake form. And one of the questions we ask is, Josh, do you like public praise or private praise? And we document that on your employee record. So Josh says, I like public praise. Okay, great. So when you are in the green, we will make sure that we go into our Slack and praise you.
[00:28:12]
We have a channel in Slack called praise and we'll tag you and say, Josh did amazing for such and such reason. Look at this Google review he earned us and so forth. So yeah, it's not always monetary, but then if on the private side, like, okay, I'll talk to Vanita on our team in Toronto and say, Hey, Make sure you take Pavlino for a coffee, right?
[00:28:33]
There's a small budget. So that's what we'll do. Making sure that their great efforts are recognized in the way that they want to be recognized. Not everybody wants public praise. And that was a lesson I learned earlier in my career. I thought everybody wanted public praise. It actually is detrimental to their engagement.
[00:28:49]
Yellow is they need coaching. What do they need coaching on? So we have something called the LPs and LOs. LP is a learning path. LOs are learning outcomes. So let's say Josh is on our team. He's in the yellow. He's a Heart of House team member, so he's primarily in the kitchen. And our team said, he's not moving fast.
[00:29:12]
Okay. The LP will be speed, the thing we need him to work on. The LOs will be like, well, let's get granular here. What's he slow on? His knife skills, cutting onions and cucumbers and beets, that's what we need to work on him with. So we'll put you on learning path for X period of days or weeks. And then when that time comes, let's say it's a four week learning path.
[00:29:39]
If you have not improved, then you're going in the red. We're going to term. So the red is off board termination. Nobody gets to red without going to yellow first. We will always coach you one because it is the best path forward for everybody involved. And two is We're supposed to as leaders coach you, right?
[00:30:02]
We don't expect you to be perfect, but we have, we expect you to meet us halfway in wanting to redevelop yourself. It's great. Yeah. It sounds like you document this as well. It is all documented. It is absolutely documented.
[00:30:13] Josh Sharkey:
Does this happen not just with the line level team, but do you do this with executives as well?
[00:30:18] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, it's in a more, uh, robust nature. It's not as rapid fire because there's just not as many people. But we do, uh, do this at all levels within the company. It's not on a weekly basis. Uh, it's more so on a monthly and quarterly basis.
[00:30:35] Josh Sharkey:
What's an example an LP and the LO that you've had to do as an executive? Cause obviously these, these, these things for, for the line level might be more, a little bit more tactical or skill based. Uh, sometimes I'm sure it's not, but like for an executive, what's an example of something that you've had to do?
[00:30:49] Michel Falcon:
So let's say on the sales. So with our operations team, if, uh, our sales at the four walls are not what we want them to be.
[00:30:57]
For example, let's say our beverage sales aren't as high as they need to be according to forecast and budget. That is something that we would put somebody on an LP for.
[00:31:08] Josh Sharkey:
The manager of the store. Correct. And what does that look like? Same model.
[00:31:13] Michel Falcon:
Right? So the LP would be beverage sales. The LOs would be, well, how are we cross selling our customers, or upselling, pardon me, on beverage sales?
[00:31:24]
Are we inspecting what we expect on how we want your team to actually present beverage sales? So, in, in some restaurants, they'll ask you, would you like a drink? It's really easy to say no to. Instead, we say, what beverage or treat would you like? Treat meaning cookies. That's assumed, like, of course you're going to order a drink, right?
[00:31:46]
It's hard to say no to. So the preemptive selling, that has proven to work for us to increase our conversions in selling beverages. But do we know that that manager is actually doing that? So, we'll send our mystery shoppers in. And we'll tell the mystery shopping company, Hey, we want you to really hone in on this one line item on the shop card for this month.
[00:32:08]
So that's one of the assets and tools that we have to be able to keep our managers, you know, accountable to, in this case, the LP being beverage sales.
[00:32:18] Josh Sharkey:
Love it. You also have like this hotline, I think, or something of that nature, right?
[00:32:22] Michel Falcon:
Yeah.
[00:32:23] Josh Sharkey:
What is that?
[00:32:25] Michel Falcon:
Have you ever called a restaurant and nobody answered or. Uh, they called and it's chaos in the background. That is a poor customer experience. But also on the employee experience side of things, having to answer the phone and you've got three Uber drivers in front of you and a guest in front of you, that's a poor guest experience, uh, for the customer and not a great experience for the team member.
[00:32:48]
So I thought of, I don't want our phones to ring. The only time our restaurant's phone rings is when we get a call from our call center. So I thought, you know, I started at the call center at 1-800 GOTJUNK, so I know call centers quite well. So I said, why can't we have an 800 number? Do you remember Zappos?
[00:33:07]
So Brian Scudamore sent me to Henderson, Nevada in 2008 to go inspect what Zappos was doing. Cause they were, you know, a million to a billion in 10 years. There were talk of e-commerce and business at the time. So one of the things that I learned from them is just like this extraordinary customer experience, eight hour phone calls, customers calling in being like, where can I get the best pizza?
[00:33:34]
This is for a company that sells shoes. So I thought, could we create a Zappos like experience, but for restaurants? So we have an 800 number, 1-800 GOBRASA. And anybody can call for any reason. So you'll hear my voice on the IVR recording. So I'll say press one for, uh, questions about our menu, catering, and more.
[00:33:57]
Press two to have us help you book a trip to Peru. Press three to listen to, uh, Interesting Peruvian facts. So number one, self explanatory. Josh calls, Hey, where's my order? Or, you know, what gluten free items do you have or whatnot? And our call center answer, it's internal. Uh, one of the team member that we have right now is named Arvin that answers the phone.
[00:34:20]
So think of what that does for the team member at the restaurant level. I no longer have to answer the phone. I got somebody watching my back, answering these questions. We shield the restaurants from those calls that are managed by head office. Great opportunity for catering too, right? Because people will call for catering and I want to capture that revenue and make sure that we're converting, answering the phone right away and converting that customer.
[00:34:39]
Number two is something Zappos like where people will call in and be like, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm Going to Peru next month and somebody told me to call you know, what are the best museums to go to in Lima? Oh, what's your email address? We'll send you the our travel catalog So we have this nicely designed travel catalog that we'll send off to Josh and that's creating experiences that you've never seen before Like what type of I thought you were a fast casual restaurant cop.
[00:35:05]
Yeah, we are and we're like this pseudo travel agency as well Um, that helps us achieve kind of the vision of the company. The vision of the company is to have millions of people explore the flavors of Peru and the company's majestic culture. And if we can be a stepping stone to helping you explore a new culture, a new cuisine, um, from New York or Toronto, and like, could we influence tourism?
[00:35:29]
If we scaled, I think we could. So that's number two. Also, we've had people call and ask to get us to help them book reservations at popular restaurants in Lima. Not many people know this and I'm on a crusade to make sure that everybody knows this. Peru has two of the top ten restaurants in the world right now.
[00:35:47]
And I'm very much betting my career that Peruvian cuisine is going to have its time under the sun next. Mediterranean food is doing its thing right now, isn't it? Cava, Naya, and all these other great brands. But, uh, and then the third is a 15 minute voice recording of me talking about all the facts about Peru, about Peru.
[00:36:07]
Like Paddington Bear is Peruvian. Tupac Shakur was named after a Peruvian monarch. Uh, Peru's the potato capital of the world. Like all these like mind bending facts are You know, my closest friends are like, this doesn't sound true,
[00:36:22] Josh Sharkey:
But I'm like, it is, go Google it. It's really cool, man. It's reminds me of, uh, actually I think the episode has dropped today with Jack McGarry.
He's founder of the Dead Rabbit, his cocktail bar. Yeah. And, um, he's, he, uh, yeah. He's, he's on a very similar mission to, uh, promote the culture of Ireland. I love seeing this with restaurants doing more than just the medium of food. How often do you get to Peru?
[00:36:46] Michel Falcon:
I was there last in 2020, March, 2020. I didn't know what martial law was until I heard it. And I was there with my marketer, Jordan, and my videographer, Sean. So March, 2020. And we get to Lima and two days later we were supposed to travel to the interior of Peru because I was there to meet with farmers and fishermen and art historians to understand what was this brand going to be like. And this was the inception of the company.
[00:37:21]
And one day we were out having drinks all through the afternoon and the early evening. And throughout the day we had heard that the president was making an announcement at 8pm. But, you know, we weren't really paying attention. So that announcement came and the president said, I'm shutting the borders.
[00:37:38]
Nobody can leave and nobody can come in. And I was like, okay, what martial law? I was like, Oh, so I turned to Jordan and Sean and I was like, Hey, like we can't go anywhere. They're like, well, aren't we going to go to Arequipa tomorrow? Well, no, we like literally can't leave and at the time men could leave their homes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, women could leave Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, nobody could leave Sunday, and the only time that you could leave your home was to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and we were there for three weeks.
[00:38:19]
We're not doing anything that we're supposed to do, because we're all locked down. That's a severe lock. The Canadian government had Air Canada send repatriation flights to come get us. Only people in Lima. Remember, we were supposed to travel to an interior country, uh, city. The next day, if we had, we would have been stuck there for months.
[00:38:40]
I went to a high school, there was a Facebook group called, uh, Canadians Trapped in Peru. And there was a guy named Mark Petrobon that I went to high school with, who was in a more remote city in Peru. He was there for six months. Nuts. Yeah, after three weeks, um, planes came to get us, but unfortunately when I booked our flights, uh, I didn't make the flight.
[00:39:02]
Uh, because they're sold out, but I got my dad, Sean, and Jordan on and I was there for another three weeks. Eventually I got home, but, uh, to answer your question, how often do I get back there? I haven't been back since, but I am going in February, 2025. That's a crazy way to start the company.
[00:39:20] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, absolutely. It's telling though of, uh, you know, you go through a bunch of, a bunch of madness to get what you want.
[00:39:26] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, and then you go into operating restaurants during a pandemic. So, you know, I've had, uh, I've had my lashes.
[00:39:33] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. What do you think people don't know about Peruvian food? And maybe you can relate this to your menu at Peruvian food. Brasa. What do they not know about Peru that they should know?
[00:39:42] Michel Falcon:
So you have flavors coming from the mountains, the oceans, from the Amazon. Uh, Peru has 90 different microclimates. So that allows it to grow things that other countries just simply can't, physically can't, because they don't have the agriculture for it.
[00:40:02]
One of the advantageous things to come from that is that they are recognized as the superfood capital of the world. Cacao, maca, quinoa. Puffed amaranth, uh, lucuma, like it goes on and on and on. There are some things that you may have in your cupboard, um, are health driven. A supplement perhaps, comes from Peru, Peru is the largest exporter of organic quinoa in the world.
[00:40:29]
I mentioned earlier the potato capital of the world, they have over 4,000 different types, hundreds of different types of corn, things that are just so rich in antioxidants. It's not just flavorful. It's just, it's not just an agastronomic pleasure. They're health driven ingredients and products that we as North Americans consume today, but don't even know that they're from Peru.
[00:40:53]
And that is the storytelling ability that we have, or opportunity rather, that we have to create this brand that's not just flavorful, but also rich in nutrition. And how we've designed our menu is we want to be flavor first. supported by nutrition. Um, many, uh, wellness and nutritionist dietitians are very familiar with these health driven products that come from Peru and, and ingredients such as Camu Camu.
[00:41:22]
It's a berry that is grown in the Amazon in Peru. It's known as the vitamin C powerhouse of the world, but like everyday North Americans don't know what it is. Our strawberry Camu cake smoothie that we have. It has, uh, over 30 grams of protein in it, but it also has the equivalent vitamin C of 10 oranges after drinking this one smoothie because of Camu Camu that we add to it.
[00:41:46] Josh Sharkey:
Where's the protein come from?
[00:41:47] Michel Falcon:
We add protein to it.
[00:41:49] Josh Sharkey:
Is it whey or what is it?
[00:41:50] Michel Falcon:
Uh, it's vegan. It's vegan protein.
[00:41:52] Josh Sharkey:
Pea protein?
[00:41:53] Michel Falcon:
Correct. We don't ask you if you want to add protein. We're just going to give it to you. Because, uh, one of our, we work with a nutritionist and a dietitian. After our chef has designed the menu item, we send it over to two individuals and they audit it for nutrition.
[00:42:09]
And one of them told me a statistic and, and, um, this isn't an exact quote, but it was something like 93 percent of North Americans don't have enough protein in their diet. So I said, you know what, we're just going to give it to you. And nobody objects. Our superfood smoothie program is like one you've never seen before.
[00:42:26]
There's eight of them with a minimum of 29 grams of protein. Our vanilla lukuma smoothie has 38 grams of protein. When you go to a smoothie bar and they say, hey, do you want to add smoothie for 3? Ask them how much protein they're asking, putting in it. It's not a lot.
[00:42:45] Josh Sharkey:
I love that. I'm on a very high protein diet right now. Come on over. It's tough to, I think it, I think it's what's interesting is the people, the thing that people probably underestimate the most about, the most difficult part about like putting on protein. Muscle is how much you have to eat in protein. It's like, I have to eat like a garbage pail of food to be able to, I'm, I'm on a hundred and 70 grams per day. I'm at 190. Well, I'm assuming it's, you're doing it based on your weight, right?
[00:43:13] Michel Falcon:
You're correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, uh, Or the way they want to get. Yeah. Exactly. Um, and it's almost impossible. It's so hard. Yeah. I eat like, uh. You know what the trick is? Add protein to your coffee. So
[00:43:25] Josh Sharkey:
I won’t do that
[00:43:26] Michel Falcon:
You don't do that?
[00:43:27] Josh Sharkey:
I like, I like to drink my, I like to taste my coffee.
[00:43:27] Michel Falcon:
Well, I have the first, the pure coffee first, and then the second coffee at about 10 with protein in it.
[00:43:34] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. So I, I have, this might be a tangent and, you know, we can just cut this out if we need to, but like, just because I'm such a big protein kick right now, like, It is difficult.
[00:43:42]
There's this one bar called David's that just came out. Yeah, it's everywhere. It's fucking good. Is it? And it's 28 grams for this bar. Yeah. And it's very Where are you buying it? It's online. It's only digital. I think it's only DTC. But um, I eat a lot of chomps because the meat sticks, you know? Uh, but like every, like, it's, it's basically, I think a lot of it is how you start the day.
[00:44:01]
So I'll have like four eggs, you know, I'll have like a protein shake with like, I usually use like the paleo valley protein mix and it's got, and I add pea protein and put athletic greens in there. Yep. And then I'll have like fish and chicken for lunch. And I'm still like, okay, I still got another 55 grams to go.
[00:44:19] Michel Falcon:
I'm like, dude, this is. So we train our team members. If somebody says I'm on a high protein diet, you should know what to give them. Organic quinoa, get them chicken thighs, double them up on the, uh, protein by giving them shrimp, get them to order a smoothie, you're in for like 90 grand. That's, yeah. Now you're stuffed, you're stuffed.
[00:44:45] Josh Sharkey:
I have a buddy who's a fitness, uh, well he's a fitness podcast and a, and a show and home media company around this, but like, he, Here's a really good sort of approach to if anyone is trying to sort of put on weight and also be conscious of, you know, fat, things like that, is eat anything you want, but first, make sure you get Your protein amount.
[00:45:06]
So if you need to get 160 grams of protein before you can have cake, first get 160 grams of protein. Because, like, once you get like a 90 gram protein luncheon, you're not eating the whole cake, right? The problem with protein powders, I find, or protein shakes and things, is like the sugar. It's like, you see some of these things, like 32 grams of sugar.
[00:45:26]
Dude. They, a lot of them use like monkfish, things like that. Or not monkfish, uh, monkfruit. Which is good. It's, it's Tough to, to get a lot of monk fruit. 'cause it's, it is very, very sweet. Even though it's not sugar, it's obviously like really low glycemic. The tough part for me is like finding things that don't have sugar in them.
[00:45:44] Michel Falcon:
Yeah. So we, this is why we have Emma and Dr. Courtney kind of on our roster is to make sure that. What we serve can be a daily occurrence. I could have started a pizza or a burger brand and quite frankly, it might have been easier to build and scale because it's very Instagrammable. Tourists love getting these things, whereas when you're a health driven brand, it's not as viral as the indulgent item like, like that or, or cookies.
[00:46:16]
But with Emma and Dr. Courtney. Nothing comes on the menu until they report back on the macronutrients. And I asked myself and my wife, would we eat this? I give it to my nutritionist, Marcus. Marcus, can I eat this every day? Because I'm around the food all the time. And with my last full service restaurants, it was a very alcohol driven business.
[00:46:41]
Full service, cocktail bars, little nightclubs in them as well. And as I got older, I realized like, I have to really love how I build my company and how I make money. And that stems from, would I consume the products on a daily basis? That's part of why Brasa was built, was, it was something for me and my wife.
[00:47:03]
And it just so happened to be related to my culture. Truly, you know, love the business and love the family.
[00:47:09] Josh Sharkey:
Love that, man. We went on a little bit of protein rabbit hole, but that's okay. I think, you know, we're gonna, wrapping this up, because I know we're about an hour, and I don't want to be sensitive to your time. You've done, you've done some keynote addresses, and you obviously do advising, consulting, things like that. I imagine you've done a few of these. But is there a question that you wish, like, more people would ask you that, that you don't really get?
[00:47:31] Michel Falcon:
Why are you building this company? Now, you know, I'm capitalistic. I, you know, I have investors. I have a fiduciary responsibility to make people money. Um, you know, outside investors, myself, secure my livelihood, but how am I going to do that? I see profit as a reward. It's an outcome of my efforts and the mission state of the company isn't actually a mission statement. I call it, why do we work and why do we exist?
[00:48:04]
And verbatim, word for word, I'm not looking at a sheet or anything, it's stitched into my brain. To build a company that the world needs more of. One where everyday people are empowered to make great money, achieve career growth, and help close the income equality gap. Now, if I was to unpack that, I want to build a company that communities, neighbourhoods want.
[00:48:32]
Landlords want, I want to be able to prop up, uh, you know, everyday people, you know, I, I don't care about, you know, billionaires and, you know, individuals like that who seemingly get celebrated by society. I want the everyday person, you know, I think of my parents when I think that immigrants to the country, great citizens, I want to be able to help people make great money.
[00:48:57]
Which is why we pay more. And am I going to close the income equality gap? I'm not going to, but I'm not going to be on the opposite side. So that's why we exist. And the outcome of that from a company perspective is that we have great net profits. We have a revered brand, our employees like working with us, we have clean restaurants because of that, phenomenal products, uh, and great hospitality.
[00:49:27]
So it all ladders up to great things for the company by kind of building this people first culture, which was the title of my book in 2018.
[00:49:36] Josh Sharkey:
I love that. Um, yeah, we didn't get to talk a bunch about the book, but I think maybe before we go, if you just let everybody know about it, because it seems like based on everything you're talking about, it seems like it's a fantastic idea. It's really important.
[00:49:47] Michel Falcon:
Yeah, so I wrote a book in 2018 called People First Culture, build a lasting company by shifting your focus from profits to people. Now that's not to say that I don't believe in building profitable companies, I full heartedly do, but there's a right way and there's a wrong way to do it.
[00:50:01]
I do not believe in stepping on people, neglecting people and what they want to achieve as individuals. And like I said, profit is a reward. And I expect that reward every single month. That book was written in 2018. I have explored writing another book, but for now I do coaching. It's called Teams by Michelle Falcon.
[00:50:24]
And it's a coaching program where people come. It's a community of individuals. We dial in once a week and I kind of play therapist, um, with professionals around North America. We all gather, we all support each other. All my systems and processes are, you know, they have full access to that. But that's another one of kind of the things that really drives me is taking what I've learned and implemented in my business and be able to pass this along to other industries so that everybody can build hospitable companies, not just for their customers, but.
[00:50:57] Josh Sharkey:
I love that man. Well, I'm excited to check out the restaurant, not just because I'm going to get a lot of protein out of it, but because I also love Peruvian cuisine. And, um, thank you, man. Thanks for taking your time coming here. I appreciate it. And this was, this was awesome. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast.
[00:51:13]
The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, head If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.