the-restaurant-guys_2_05-26-2026_124833 0:11

Hello everybody, and welcome. You are listening to The Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal, and I'm here with Francis Schott. Together we own Stage Left and Catherine Lombardi Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. Hey, Mark. How are you? Hey. I'm doing great, buddy. How you doing? Uh, I'm doing great. I'm actually looking forward to talking to our guest today. I say actually, like usually I hate it, but- today I'm really happy to. No, so Preston Lee is gonna join us. Preston Lee is a restaurant consultant. It's a little bit inside baseball for he's not like a famous bartender or chef or whatever. It's a little inside baseball for us, but I think stay with us. I think you'll like the show. Oh, I think it's, I think it's- Yeah gonna be a super interesting show. He's a, he's a c- he's a restaurant consultant. He does a lot about hospitality. Mm-hmm. We feel philosophically aligned, and he's much younger than us. And, uh, we found him on Instagram, where he has a great presence. It's gonna be a great conversation, so I'm looking forward to that. But I wanted to start with something else. Okay. It's gonna be a bit of a bitch session. You mind? So we're gonna call today Tuesday. No. All right. So I don't know if you've seen this, and I just learned about it to me, completely out of the blue. Mm-hmm. New York City has started an anti-booze- campaign, like a, not a moderate drinking, you know, it's like a, "Alcohol is bad, it'll kill you. Never drink it again," uh, campaign, and it's huge. Um- And it came out of the blue, and I'm- Francis- Yeah I believe we tried that once before. Yeah. Didn't we? Didn't we give that a- Well- Didn't we give that a, a shot once before and people said, "Nah." Well, that was making it illegal. They're not- I mean- trying to make it illegal. They are, they have posters and an ad campaign and a social media campaign. And all right, I'll give you an example. They have a poster, one of the posters, it's a bottle of beer and, and the label on the bottle simply says, "Cancer." Actually it says, "Cancer risk," but cancer and the, the, the, the, the line, the meme on the poster is, "No chaser, just the truth. You deserve to know about alcohol and cancer. Alcohol causes cancer." Okay, there, there have been so many studies on this, and most of them come out that it is better to be a moderate drinker than a non-drinker. It's better to be a moderate drinker than a heavy drinker, and I say live and let live, baby. Yeah, man. I, you know, I also think that there are... So the, the, there was the big study under the Biden Administration- Mm-hmm that came out that said no amount of alcohol is safe. Now, look, just because it's the most recent study doesn't mean it's the most correct study- right, in, in, in that. And then there were all sorts of really responsible people who came on after that and talked about how our culture of alcohol and bars and the like, and even wine at dinner promotes, uh, social interaction and social cohesion, and being lonely, that is the enemy of a lot of people- Mm-hmm especially in New York City. Absolutely. You know? I, I think it's causing a lot of mental illness. 100%. I think it's causing a lot of mental problems, a lot of depression, and we, we need to get back out, and we need to be talking to each other and seeing each other and being social. And I, I'm sorry, alcohol is one of the facilitators of those things. Yeah, and it's also part of our culture. Yeah. I mean, let's, I mean, the beer culture goes back a long way in Western European culture- Mm-hmm and other cultures. And wine goes back to before the Bible, to Greek culture, to Italian culture, to the American culture that we've built up for a long time. It's part of the culture, and you know what? If nobody ever scuba dives, no scuba divers will ever drown again. So, you know, but you'll be a l- a, no amount of scuba diving is safe, you know? But it's not even that, Francis. We're talking about there are benefits to drinking alcohol as well. Yeah, yeah. And to not recognize that there's benefits to drinking alcohol, and obviously drinking alcohol, not everything is a benefit, okay? Yeah. There's two sides of that coin. 100%. 100%, but to, to not recognize that people socialize around alcohol is, is just a mistake. Then you have the, other super counterproductive thing you have here is- Restaurants are struggling. Restaurants are going out of business faster than you've ever seen before. Yeah, yeah. Okay? We are in a, in a huge time of, economic downturn towards restaurants- Yeah, yeah, yeah in particular. Yeah. And I think that having a campaign in New York City that says, "Spend less money and, and have less fun in your restaurants and bars in New York City," is stupid. Well, I mean, how much of New York City's economy- It's... Hold on. Stupid. Yeah, I... Totally. Well, it's, you're New York City. I mean, if people just stopped drinking in New York City, you know what would happen to the hotels and the conventions and all that in New York City? I mean, it just... And you know what? Why- It's just, it's just stupid. I'm with you. But why the selective outrage, okay? Mm-hmm. And it's weird coming from a city. Like, from a state department of health or the national department of health, it's a national problem. But what is particular about, how does alcohol particularly affect New York City? It's the only city in the country that's doing this. And why alcohol and not pot? I don't un- I don't, I don't get that. It's pot, but pot's fashionable- Mm-hmm among the crowd that is trying to- Mm-hmm get everybody to stop drinking. I, it's, it makes no sense to me. You gotta realize too, so much of pot is smoked, and now- Yeah you're talking about inhaling smoke and- Right, right you know, the, damage that, that happens there. Right. I- Right, when I drink my, my Mad Dog 2020 walking down the street- you don't smell it, uh, uh, you know, in your window. Actually, we, we, we do, Francis. Oh, yeah. Well, I get closer to you than other people though. We actually, we actually do. Well, you know what I'm, I'm, here's my solution. I'm protesting, okay? We never get political on this show, but here we are. I'm gonna let some of my political, opinions be known. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm, this is my activism. I'm gonna go find some of these posters, and I'm gonna stand in front of them with a drink, and I'm gonna get you to take a picture of me- and we're gonna post them online. And I want to encourage all of the Restaurant Guys podcast listeners, do that. Tag The Restaurant Guys, uh, Instagram, whatever your social media is. When you're in New York City, if you're visiting New York City, if you live in New York City, find one of these posters, grab yourself a cold brewski, and toast to The Restaurant Guys in front of this. I, I'll bet you somewhere in my garage- Yeah is that old college beer funnel. Okay, now- you're arguing the other side. See, that went too far. Like, if the, if the city put out a thing saying beer funnels- No more beer funnels. No, yeah, but I would- Yes, I, you know, I'd probably say- I couldn't argue with that yeah, that's- Yeah, I could not argue that that's not a mistake. All right. Well, let's come back in just a couple of minutes and we'll talk to Preston Lee, uh, about hospitality, kindness, and how to have a good life in the restaurant business. You can always find out more about The Restaurant Guys at restaurantguyspodcast.com. Stay with us.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 6:40

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. Our guest today, as promised, is Mr. Preston Lee. He's a hospitality consultant and founder of The 30% Rule. His book, The Hospitality Handbook: How Unconditional Hospitality Transforms Teams, Customers, and Companies. Mark and I each found him independently on his Instagram presence, where he offers bite-size insights into how hospitality works. Uh, we found ourselves agreeing with a lot of what he posted over the last year or so. We're philosophically aligned, and we think he has some pretty interesting insights into this crazy restaurant world of ours, so we've asked him to come on the show today. Preston Lee, welcome to the show

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 7:17

Thank you for having me

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 7:18

we love your Instagram presence, We always have, we have a lot, a huge following among the restaurant trade i- in our podcast listenership, but we're mostly consumer-facing, you know? And, people who are interested in the restaurant business but may not be in it. your Instagram is really great, and one of the things that we found ourselves sending each other clips that we would find of you on Instagram saying, "See? See? Look at this." And sometimes it's 'cause you have insights- I told you the host has to stop frowning yeah, yeah. Well, and sometimes it's 'cause you have insights that, that, you know, maybe we haven't thought of, and sometimes it's 'cause you articulate things that we hold dear and always find ourselves saying to everyone else. But, uh, I think, and I, I kinda wanna start with what I think may be the, foundation of this all. I think that we both believe that hospitality is just a way to structure kindness. It's kindness at the, at the base of it, isn't it?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 8:12

Yeah, it's kindness and care. You

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 8:14

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 8:15

I define it. You know, it's a, it's, it is kindness for sure, but it's also caring. Like just the basic principle of caring about another human being

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 8:24

Yeah. You know, you talk a lot about training people and teaching people how to, do the function of this, but I think that, one of the things that's, that's left unsaid is y- you have to start with somebody who wants to care, right? You have to start with the right type of human being. And so a lot of hospitality starts in the, with the hiring process. Starts, when your manager's interviewing and your manager's talking to the, the person, and then once you get the person, you have this beautiful framework of how to get them to, actually be hospitable, to, to show people the care that, they have in their heart Is, is that correct?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 9:03

uh, it's, it's tough,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 9:05

can disagree with me

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 9:07

yeah, it, it's, it's, it's tough. So there's, you know, there's that viewpoint for sure, and I, I, I look at it as, um... You know, I look at Chick-fil-A, for example. They have, you know, over 4,000 locations, I don't know how many employees, and they do a really good job of getting very young people to care and get bought in to fast food, by the way.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 9:25

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 9:26

and they don't pay-- They're not like In-N-Out where they pay an exorbitant amount more than, you know, minimum wage. So how do they get so many people to care? And I always... You know, it can't be the hiring process after certain points, right?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 9:37

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 9:38

and it's really just tapping into it, I think is really the secret sauce, is how do you tap into the care. Everyone cares, right? it's how do you get them to care and how do you get them to, to, like you said, want to care. Um, and it's... And what we do, what I focus on is tapping into their why. So, you know, it's very much like Simon Sinek, but, but more importantly, like going a little bit deeper into their why, 'cause their why's never... Nine times out of 10 or eight times out of 10, not gonna be attached to the job that they're in right now, right? know about you guys, I started off in this industry with zero desire to be in it long term, right? It was a part-time job until I went on to bigger and better things, and then that turned to 10 years, that turned to 15 years, and then it turned into a career, which I love and I'm very, you know, passionate about. Um, but, it didn't start off that way, right? So it's about tapping into their why ahead of time and showing them that this, what- regardless if you're staying here or not, right, you're going to learn skill sets that are going to develop you into your next role, into your next career. Whatever that career is, doesn't matter. You wanna be a doctor, you wanna be, uh, an influencer, you wanna be, um, a veterinarian. Like, whatever it is that you wanna do, whatever your future is, awesome, right? We're not gonna teach you how to be a veterinarian here at this restaurant, but we will teach you some skill sets to be successful in that field, some skill sets that will transfer, right? And you have two options when you come into work every day in this job, is that you can either build yourself up or you can build yourself down, but you are doing one of the two things. There is no C, right? It's if you come in and say, "This is just a job. I'm only temporary until I go into my ne- next, my next location, which is bigger and better things," awesome, but that's gonna build yourself down because you're practicing habits that are gonna be detrimental to you, right? You're, you're practicing yourself not to care. You're practicing not showing up as the best version of yourself. And so that's where I start trying to tap into the why early on in the interview process, by the way, yes, right? Setting in those expectations and letting them know, "We are here to develop you as a person. There is opportunity here for you to g- you know, go to your next level. You're not gonna do it, though, if you come in saying, 'This is just a job.'"

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 11:41

I just want you to clarify, you don't hire every person who walks in to an interview and say, "I'm gonna teach them how to be awesome."

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 11:48

you hire coachability and you hire, uh, for coachability and for willingness

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 11:52

Yes. Those, that's, that's what I was getting to earlier. Uh, one of the things I wanted to say, though, and I say it to my staff all the time because it's absolutely true, and after 34 years, I know it's true. The people who succeed here succeed at every other part of their life. That's, that's 100% true. If you succeed in our restaurants, you will have success in the other parts of your life. 1,000 times, 1,200 times, 1,500 times now I've seen it. it's just true. so the buy-in is different now than it was before. Mm-hmm. Right? we attack this from, different ways and different ways of learning, and I, I think you talk about that a lot. Uh, and I would like you to talk about that some more. Francis and I do do things differently than we did 34 years ago. Mm. And we did things differently 24 years ago, and differently 14 years ago, and differently four years ago. And if you're not willing to understand that the workforce is going to change and that the public is going to change with their expectations, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble what's changing now and what needs to change now for the restaurateur who, who started 10 years ago and does things a certain way? how is it different now?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 13:02

Well, first I wanna say kudos to you guys for having that mindset, um, because most people don't. And that's one thing that's crazy about the restaurant industry is how archaically people operate. And what I mean by that is, you know, you just said something that I very rarely hear is how often do you evolve, right? And, uh, we talk about this a lot is innovation, right? We have to be innovators in the way we do things and we operate. How often are you evolving? And most restaurants are still operating the same way they did five years ago, which is already a problem, but 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. and, and when you think about like a, a, a training like with a restaurant, right? So, "Hey, you're gonna come in. We're gonna have an onboarding day. You're gonna shadow some people a couple of days, and then we'll give you like a test, and off to the races. You should kind of figure out from there." It's like that's how they were doing it in like the '80s, and we're still operating and training the same way, which is absurd. And you just brought up a great point, 'cause even from five years ago, what happened five years ago? And like that right away was a huge shift in our industry. Everyone feels it. Like when we talk to people all the time, it's like this, here's where we're, we're at and here's where we're at post-COVID. Um, because it changed the way people thought. People got free money, right? They didn't

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 14:08

Yeah.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 14:08

They didn't have to work for months. And all of a sudden they're like, "Wait a minute, I wanna do this," right? "I wanna do this. I don't wanna do that thing anymore. I wanna do this thing now." And so and we're like, "No, no, come back and do this thing," you know, uh, "Trust us." So it, it changed the way they thought, right? And so we have to adapt to that. Second thing that changed was Gen Z. Gen Z is flooding the workforce. They're a different generation. They're a different breed for a couple of different reasons. What we wanna be cognizant of and say, "Hey, we wanna continue evolving," is that, uh, Gen Alpha is behind them. more problematic, right? And then AI. when I say AI, I don't mean like we need AI in our business. Yes, you do need AI in your business, and you're gonna need it more and more as the time goes on. What that looks like is gonna be very different than mo-most people probably picture. But why it's important to understand AI is, is, is a game changer is because it changes the way people learn, and, and it already has. Like in colleges, they've actually lowered the reading level in most colleges, I don't know if you know, this is a fact, right? To get in because, because people are reading less, their, their, their reading levels are, are lower. Uh, but instead of saying, "Let's, let's raise the bar," they're like, "Let's just lower the bar so we can get more people in." But the reason that's also important is that there's going to be people, and there's probably already people in your organization right now that have never written a body of text on their own from

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 15:21

Wow

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 15:22

right? Remember guys, like we were, "Hey, I want to write an SOP. Here we go. Word one, word two, word three, and there we go." Like we start typing. That's gone,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 15:30

Wow

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 15:30

It's like, "ChatGPT, you do it, and then I'll ty-type it up. Hey, I gotta write you guys an email. ChatGPT, you do it. I gotta write you guys a text. I gotta respond to a text. ChatGPT, how, what's the best way to respond to this text?" And then I'll touch it up. There's gonna be people that have never written that. We have to think about that, right? When we're

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 15:44

I just, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta stop you right there.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 15:47

Oh, yes.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 15:47

You just ruined my day. Uh, 'cause o-

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 15:52

do that a lot with people

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 15:53

obviously you're right, but I remember the time when we... I'll give you an ex- an, an analog. Ooh, it's a good analog. M- there was a ti- we had, um, God, this has to be 25 years ago now, and, um, well, there was a waitress, you know, competent waitress. you start as a busser, you go to a back waiter, you become a front waiter, and she was in the back. And all of the printouts, uh, obviously give you a digital time, and this woman, super fashionable, had this super fashionable analog watch on. And Mark said, um, Brenda, Brenda, what time is it?" I was like, "Oh, I don't know." Mark said, "Brenda, you have a, you have a watch on. What time is it?" And she looked at the watch and she said, "Oh, I don't know how to use this thing." And I thought- "Are you serious?" And then the chef's like, "Oh yeah, all the new back waiters coming up, they don't know how to u- we have to teach them how to use the analog clock to call ticket times." And I just, and I just had that moment again right now- with the paragraph. Uh, thank you very much for that. And I, and I'm also gonna explain to you that earlier today Francis said, "Oh, I had the best day yesterday. I walked to the park, I sat down on a bench, and I just read a book for two hours." With paper and words typed on it. But, uh, yeah. And, and you know what I know n- now know? You were alone in that park, my friend. So, okay, so what do we do with 'Cause you're on the forefront of this, and we're, you know, we are willing to change, but we, you know, we're not, on the leading edge. You are. You have a lot of different organizations. You're in a lot of different places across the country. How do you change the way that you train these folks who, who have this different way of learning?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 17:22

That's a great question. So one is, you know, we have to understand first of all, like who we're dealing with, right? And, and what, what, you know, our audience, and that's important. So Gen Z, first of all, is understanding Gen Z. Gen Z's not motivated by money and, and I think we all know that, right? Gen Z's the first generation that would walk out of a shift or walk out, quit on a drop of a dime, right? We're from a generation where it was a little bit... There's some shame involved in that. If I quit or if I walk out of a shift, you know, I have to ex- like, uh, people, my, my, my parents or my friends would be like, "That's kind of, that's not, that's not very, you know, good behavior,"

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 17:56

The people you work with would've stoned you. you're... you're... I mean

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 17:59

And you would be ashamed of that, right? You'd be like, "I, you know what? I owe it to them to show up," right? "Someone hired me and they took a chance on me. I have coworkers that rely on me," right? So we have-- They don't have that anymore. I'm generalizing, but, a lot of them don't, right? And so they, they walk out on shifts and they also, um, they're not motivated by money, right? So we have to say, "Okay, well, what are they motivated by?" What they're motivated by right now is they're motivated, motivated by two things, and this is all in the data, and you can see all the bigger companies that are really successful with Gen Z, like Ch- Chick-fil-A, is they want structure. "Okay, I don't want any guessing in my job. I wanna know exactly what to do and how to do it. I wanna know what the expectations are. I want to... I want feedback. I wanna know how I'm doing, and I don't want any chaos. Don't throw me a curve ball. Not gonna take it," right? "Don't t-tell me tonight that we're gonna change something on the private party and now we're gonna have X, Y, and Z instead of this, 'cause I already planned for this and now you're th- now you're adding an, uh, a mild level of anxiety to my job. I don't like it." So they want structure and they want, um, clarity, and clarity is really important. But they also want purpose. So structure and clarity, and then purpose. Purpose is the second one. want purpose, and they wanna know what we're doing beyond just serving food. And, and again, I use Chick-fil-A because it's such a, you know, big brand everyone understands and everyone's experienced it, um, is they want purpose. And Chick-fil-A's purpose is always saying, "We're here to serve people, to give them a better experience," right? "We want them leaving happier." But they don't just stop there. Like Chick-fil-A, for example, has a whole training module when you get onboarded where it's like a 30-minute video and it shows people walking in and it shows them what they're going through, right? Like, this person just found out they got a job promotion. This person's grandmother just passed, that they've, you know, that was the closest person to them. This person just found out that their son is sick. Whatever, right? So, and it just goes through to show you like, oh, wait, you're dealing with humans here,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 19:37

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 19:37

they begin it. And, and, and, and you, you have an impact on people's lives. And I tell people this all the time, you know, we just created like a big manager training workbook for, for a live event, and I, and I-- there's a note card in there, and I say, "If you honestly believe that you can change the world or change everybody's... change the people that walk in your door by letting them leave happier, all of your guests, you're, you're, you know, you're contributing to that. They're leaving happier. And if you believe that you can have an impact on all of your employees by, by leaving them better off than you found them, then you can know that your business will have a positive impact on the world and that you will use your business to change the world," right? And so that's what we ha- When, when you put perspective in it like that, they believe that they're going towards something, and they are, right? But we have to put that perspective. So when they have purpose and they have, uh, structure, you're gonna see a d- a total different level of buy-in, right?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 20:26

Years ago we had Patrick O'Connell on the show, and one of the things that he challenged his staff, when a person walked in the door, they were rated for mood from one to 10. The goal of every person on staff, if somebody came in underneath eight, nine, or 10, was to raise that person three points during the course of their visit. And still his, still his philosophy today, okay? Patrick O'Connell, by the way, is the, uh- Inn at Little Washington, yeah self-taught, self-taught award-winning chef of the Inn at Little Washington. Yeah amazing guy. So you talk about buy-in, and I'll tell you, one of the things that Francis and I feel after, all our time in this business is young people are willing to buy in, but it takes longer. Mm. And you have to, you really have to work at the message and just like you said, "Why are we doing this? What's the purpose of this? How, how are we gonna do it? What are the tools you're gonna have to make people genuinely happier?" And they're buying in. They are buying in, but there's a, it's a lag. It's not... You know, we could get people to buy in, in, in three weeks or f- a month before, and now it might be four months before people are really all in.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 21:41

Yeah, because it's based off of trust, right? They wanna, they wanna trust. And it's not like it's a-- It's not like they come in thinking, "Oh, they have to, they have to earn my trust," or anything like that. They just, they don't believe things. Uh, and so when you come in and you say, "This is a purpose. I do mean what I say, and this is the structure, and you can trust us on this structure," it becomes huge. And one thing big about structure too is, minimalism. We talk about minimalism a lot. Can we make it minimalist? Our training and our systems, how we train, the more minimal that is and still be highly effective, the more powerful it becomes. That's where

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 22:14

Yeah,

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 22:14

engineering

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 22:15

great at the minimalist thing. Yeah. That's not our best quality. So, so talk to us about that. Like, how do you present to young people today, chains for a long time, they'd have you sit and watch videos and take tests. Mm-hmm. And then in the old days, you, we had a manual that outlined the steps of procedure that people would, would learn about. How, how do people under 22, uh, or under 25 digest the information? How do you get that procedure to them? What's the best way?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 22:42

The most powerful way today is, and we've done, trust me, like, 'cause we've, we've scaled over 350 brands and we've developed endless training modules for different companies, different organizations, not just restaurants in general. We're big out on L&D and we've tried everything, right? We've tried, you know, digital videos, you know, online stuff, gamifying it. Uh, what's, what's the most effective way and still the most effective way even more now than never before, the most effective way is a trainer, right? The trainer taking that person, taking them under their wing and walking them through that process, and the trainer being trained properly to do that, right? And, and guiding them and, and, and, uh, giving them all the information, the trainings, and then giving them the why. 'Cause that's what Gen Z wants, right? They want the why. Why, why are we doing... 'Cause if you can explain the why truly they'll, you'll, you'll be surprised. "Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. That makes sense," right? But as

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 23:32

Yeah. They wanna know why we're doing what we're doing. They're, it's...

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 23:35

time

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 23:36

The questions are 10 times what they were 10 years ago.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 23:41

Exactly

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 23:42

but I think that we have always based our philosophy on, and I think it's one of the things that separated us and kept us around for 34 years, is we hire intelligent people, and I may not have the procedure written down. You're, you're probably way more effective than we are at having a procedure written down for every single thing. But I want everyone who's, uh, a waiter and above, anyone who's customer-facing especially, to know why they're doing something. And like you said before, the things we do in staff training every night is we'll say, say it's gonna be a busy night. And we always say to people, "You know, you're gonna serve 30 people dinner tonight, but each one of those people is only gonna have one dinner, and they're gonna have one waiter, and you're him or her. And so you're affecting someone's life. You're their dinner with their family tonight." Mm-hmm. "They're not one of 30 from, to, from their perspective. And so you've gotta, like, be... You know, that's the emotional work of the waiter, is to be emotionally present at, with you on your dinner. And you cannot make them feel like, next," you know? That's, that's the worst. But that also, I think, is what gives this meaning. You know? Mm-hmm. If you're a great bartender, you're a great waiter, people come to see you and make that human connection. You, you write in, in some of your books that I read about that first interaction and how important it is. And, you know, we always talk about our hosts. Like, when you... And if you're a restaurateur out there listening, that first interaction, we do not start with a, "Do you have a reservation this evening?" the name of the party?" You know? You start with fricking hello. Right. And you're, and eye contact. You start with a step forward. And a human connection. You start with a step forward, not a step back, right? You know, you're, extending a hand, extending a gesture. that's the first interaction that you have as a, as a host. But what's impressive to us, and what I think you really have a lot of insight for, is, like, we're two guys, we run 225-seat restaurants, and we us- we do consulting for other independent restaurants, and we used to do more of it than we do. But you're able to scale this up over at companies with thousands of employees. How do you manage that?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 25:40

It depends. There's always different ways to go about it. It's, you know, it de- it really depends because we're very-- it's customized, right? So a lot of the times if let's say we worked with a company that has, you know, like six locations, and they're kind of struggling across all the locations, what we'll do is we flip one location first. So we'll go in, a lot of times we just do it digitally because that's the power, right? Saying we'll come in and train your staff is, is not gonna help you out, right? It'll h- it's a very short-term solution. What we wanna do is we wanna create systems in your business that will train your staff, and that's gonna be a long-term solution that's gonna last you much longer than someone coming in and training. Um, and so we'll flip one restaurant, and we call it drip training. And so what happens is if you just go in, and you guys know this, if you guys go in and say, "Hey, here's a bunch of change," right? "Good luck, everybody."

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 26:28

Yeah.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 26:29

It's way too much stuff to manage. Managers are gonna get burnt out, staff's gonna get overwhelmed, and it just works. So what we do is we call it drip training, right? And what we're gonna do is we're gonna set the precedent of accountability first. That's the most important thing. Here's how we're gonna hold people accountable from now on. We've failed you guys. We have not been holding people accountable the right way. We-- But we're gonna change that. We're gonna hold people accountable, so that way everyone's job becomes much easier, right, and much more consistent. And then we're gonna slowly drip into training. So maybe we start with that host greeting. That's it. That's a f- first agenda. We just start with the host greeting, and we get that down with accountability, with, with KPIs, key performance indicators. We monitor the hell out of that, control the narrative, and then we change that one thing. It might take us six months to flip that restaurant. It might take us nine months. But I always tell restaurant owners, I'm like, "What have you accomplished in the last year that you wanted to accomplish with your employees?"

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 27:15

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 27:15

they're like,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 27:15

right

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 27:16

"Well, no, I guess not. I mean, nothing really." It's like, yeah. So let's take our time, right? But we'll get freaking results, and then you-- all these headaches go away. And plus, what always gets affected the most when you have consistent elevated hospitality is the bottom line, right? Because at the end of the day, the job of a restaurant, ultimately the goal of the restaurant is to get the guest to come back, right? That's it. You have such a great experience that you wanna come back. And w- with that, you give them great hospitality, you give them a great experience, you give them great food, all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, our goal, like what, what why are we doing all this? Because we want them to have such a great experience they come back. You know, that's the magic of them trusting us enough to come back and have another experience and another and another.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 27:54

I just, I just wanna jump in because, um, you're a restaurant c- consultant and you go, and there's a reason that people hire you and you get paid. And what you're talking about is really important. It's gotta impact the bottom line. But I, I just wanna point out that it also is, I mean, we are still, we're in our 60s and we're still walking around on restaurant floors. We've been in the same community for 35 years, and it also makes it a better place to work. You know, the thing about it is, and what we really get from watching you over the years, it's not a bullshit slogan thought up from, you know, g- motivating people to do what you want them to do so they make more money. If the world is full of restaurants that are full of invested waiters, and bartenders, and owners, and managers who care about the people in their community, and people have more places to go to where they can get, like, an emotional connection and a human connection, it's better. It's a better place to work. It's a better place to own. It's a better place to go out to dinner. And yeah, yeah, hopefully you'll spend a little more money, and we can make a little more money, and I can pay my people a little better. But it's just, it's not only the money. Yeah. It's, this is how to have a better life. we were talking before about h- you know, how long it takes people to buy in and, and how hard it is to, get that trust. I think that some of the reason is people have worked in some of these other restaurants, and they have those scars. Yeah. They have scars from other restaurants. Yeah. They have scars from other bosses who told them it was gonna be a certain way, and then it wasn't that way. And when they walk in your door, they're like, "Uh, this is just another restaurant owner-" Yeah "yapping his mouth-" Yeah "and telling me how it's gonna be, and it's, and it's not gonna be that way." Yeah. So having the plan, and the follow-up, and the training, and, making it actually better, when they actually see people above them in our system doing better, happier, enjoying their lives. When they actually live that for a little while, they're like, "Hey, maybe this is different." one of my maitre d's right now came from four or five different, in a row, n- not great experiences with not great restaurant managers. it took him a while. Took him a while, and now he's a maitre d, and he's totally bought in, and he is one of the key players in my system 'cause he's like, "Oh, this is different. You guys need to see that this is different." Yeah. we're gonna take a quick break. Uh, we'll be back on just the other side, more with Preston Li. You can find out more about us at restaurantguyspodcast.com. Don't go away. Hey there, welcome back. More with Preston Li. Preston, I have to give you a great compliment. Well, I went and I looked up your book to kinda brush up on, all things Preston Li, and, uh, when I looked at your book on Amazon, uh, you know how they have the customers who bought this book also bought? Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, is the one that's suggested as the companion to your book. That's a good spot, you want, you wanna be on that spot. And,

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 30:41

That was

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 30:41

and so kudos to you for that. And it, it, what brought that to mind was, we talked about hospitality and trust before, and one of the things that Danny says in his book, which we also thought was an amazing book when it first came out, is that hospitality begins w- with hospitality to each other. Like, you c- you can't have a, a, a cook screaming at a waiter and then a waiter going out into the dining room where the customer's screaming at the waiter, and the waiter's screaming at the, at the busser, and you're gonna have some sort of functional organization. And the, and the customer asks for a sa- sauce on the side, and the waiter knows that they're gonna, that they're gonna- They're gonna get shit get it in the kitchen- Yeah when they walk in the kitchen. So talk to us about how you build that hospitality to each other and expectations with each other.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 31:28

Yeah, that is a huge piece of it, and that's, that's, that's culture, right? At the end of the day, that's what culture is. That's, that's your culture that you're creating and cultivating, and you're allowing, by the way, if it is that way, you're allowing it to be that way, which is totally, you know, uh, the wrong direction to go in. And it's, it's, it, it starts off with a lot of different things, right? It's, it's all about how we, you know, uh, leadership is, is the number one component to that. And also setting expectations when you're hiring, when you're training, even back at the house. And that's why I say it's always important, A, to have a common goal. What's our number one goal? I always, you know, ask restaurateurs, I go, "If I walk into your restaurant right now and I say, what-- If I go to every employee and I say, 'What's our number one goal here?' Are they all gonna give me the same answer? Like resoundingly, like it's this, yes, of course." Um, or are they gonna go, "Uh, h- uh, hospitality, you know, good, good, good service, uh, great food." And I always say like baseline for me, our goal, everyone's goal here is to give the guests the best experience possible. That is what we're here for. That's why we exist, and together we're gonna do that. That's everyone's goal. I w- guess what? Dishwasher, your goal is to give the guests the best experience possible. How you execute that is different, but you're, you are. That's why you're here. That's why you exist. That's why this role exists. That's why we need you, right? Same with the chefs. And we have to have that alignment, and that's where we have seriously clear-cut systems and, and prioritization, right? I always tell like the chefs, for example, "If you think that the server is not educated enough, right? And needs to have better training, that's definitely a conversation you're ab- absolutely allowed to have with the manager after the shift. During the shift, our number one goal is to get the guest a solution to make sure that they leave as happy as humanly possible." And so if someone comes in the back and says the steak's undercooked and they want it, uh, one temp up, we're-- that's not a-- we, we don't need to debate about that then and there. If someone says that they come, comes back in the back and asks if they can make this gluten-free and it's already gluten-free, that's not an argument that needs to happen. We don't need to add stress to the situation. All those things, right? So that's what you need because you need the s- like you just said, you need the com- the servers comfortable to go ask those questions, right? To ask for a side of sauce, to put something on the side, to make a... 'Cause you see it at the table. we've been there. You feel it at the table when they're like, "Uh, uh." Like you just feel that anxiety when you ask them the question. There's, they're processing in their head like, "Oh God, I don't wanna ask this chef, but I also don't wanna say no." And that's something we have to eliminate, like right away.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 33:41

Well, and let's, let's be honest, and I, I think Mark was referring to this earlier. Uh, there are some people that you just, that aren't gonna work in your system. There are some people that you gotta let them go, you know? And w- sometimes it's because they're a jerk, sometimes it's because they're lazy. More often it's because there is something they either won't or can't stop doing, and if they're not honest with you. So, Wine is a big part of what we do. We're a kind of a high-end wine restaurant, right? And it takes a lot for a waiter to be where they're a waiter knowledgeable to be able to talk about more than by the glass list. But with wine, and, and sometimes with food, 'cause we're, you know, a fine dining restaurant, menu change a lot, a lot of ingredients people might not be familiar with, and our number one rule is always, "I don't know" is never a wrong answer. And I might say, "Hey, listen, you should have known that," but, "I don't know," you're never gonna get in trouble for. The wrong answer- The- is a wrong answer. I- And that you're gonna get in trouble for. I don't know, as long as it's followed with, "But I'll find out." Yeah, exactly. "Somebody in this building knows the answer to that question." Right. Don't say, "Oh, chevre, uh, that means cow's cheese." Um, no. No, it does, doesn't. Because the... I mean, that's... And, and the... We have had people who just couldn't stop doing that. Like, they couldn't say... They would make stuff up, and we're like, "Listen, I, I can't let you talk to the tables anymore. You can't work here." you try and try, but there's a point where you gotta cut it loose. When do you find are the people you've gotta cut loose? what do you find is the f- firing trigger? What's the moment? Yeah.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 35:11

I mean, it-- that depends, right? 'Cause I mean, on a lot of things. I would say I, I always try to encourage the restaurants that we work with to build that mechanism in the training process.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 35:21

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 35:21

All right? And I think that's a big problem with restaurants is that they don't have a pass-fail. It is like you just show up with a pulse, and then if you show up for five days, you're gonna be into our ecosystem, in our culture, and, you know, hopefully it all works out. Versus we had to have clear-cut directive, and that's why a trained trainer is so important, and good leadership is like, you know, "Hey, how did Preston do today?" Right? And it's like, "Hmm," you know, "He doesn't seem bought in or he doesn't seem to wanna learn the wines," or, "I caught him doing something that was a little bit, like, sketchy." And we kind of work through that process day by day, see if we can improve the, that person, talk to them, you know, give them feedback and all that good stuff. And if we start to realize this is gonna be problematic and we're just gonna read the red flags for what they are, then let's just take that opportunity in the training process and say, "Look, we got you through a couple days of training. It's just not gonna work out. You're just not the fit that we're looking for. It's nothing personal," and move on versus just introducing that person into our ecosystem and

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 36:11

So how many times have you said that it's nothing personal, but you really meant it, it's personal?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 36:17

Yeah. It's-- I've-- You know, it depends. I've trained myself to not take it personal, so I... You know, and that's one thing I really encourage leadership is to not take it personal. How many times have you? It's a question

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 36:28

Oh a couple Not a lot. Not a- You've been doing this for 40 years To, to be fair, to be fair, and the other thing is I never make a decision of any kind for my business when I'm upset.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 36:39

Yes. Yes. Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 36:41

"Okay, we're gonna talk about this later." Um-

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 36:44

leadership.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 36:44

you can't make decisions when you're upset, and frankly, I don't wanna even talk to a person about the thing when I'm upset 'cause I'm, 'cause frequently i- in the light of day, I'm gonna feel differently about it, or I may feel exactly the same about it, but how I respond to that might be more rational.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 37:04

I've never reacted in the moment with while I was upset and said, "That was the good call." That,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 37:10

Exactly.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 37:11

worked out. That, that, that was... The juice was worth the squeeze,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 37:13

So glad I didn't wait.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 37:14

Yeah. Exactly. I-- The time I saved by doing that, it was definitely worth it. Yeah, you always, no matter what, even if you're, you feel the same about it afterwards, you're still like, "I still, I could've handled it better." There's, it's just, it's

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 37:26

almost always All right. I wanna talk about your job, 'cause I've done your job, okay? Haven't done it for, for a while now, probably 10 years since the last time we did it. you have a really hard job because restaurant owners are really stubborn, because they have to be or you never get to be a restaurant owner. They are... They always think they're right. Mm-hmm. Okay? 'Cause that's kind of the mindset of the entrepreneur, the restaurant owner, the person who started this thing from scratch. And frequently, they don't come to you until their business has really plummeted to, to a spot that maybe it can't even come back from. How do you deal with all that? That's a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's a lot. You can answer any part of that question

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 38:13

So we're, we're-- The way our-- we operate is we always work with people in the green. They're usually, honestly, people that are scaling, growing,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 38:21

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 38:21

um, and they're saying, "But I wanna... I, you know, we're scaling the wrong way. We're growing the wrong way," or, "We've grown the wrong way and we're feeling the pain." Um, or we just know, like, we're one store, we wanna go to two or three and we just can't, we just don't feel confident doing. So I do have that luxury. Um, but, uh, yes, like we, you know, 'cause one thing we- we have a really high success rate, and one thing that people ask us is, "Well, what about the people that have the lowest, you know, that, that don't succeed? why didn't they succeed?" And I always say it's because they just didn't listen. They just don't listen. They, they either pick or choose, or they're waiting for perfect conditions. get that all the time where they want it to be perfect. "I'm gonna wait till my, this GM comes on, or this manager, or this... It's a busy season, slow season," all this stuff, and it's like, we just gotta attack. Like, doesn't matter what the situation is, we just have to attack and go forward. Um, or they pick and choose, you know. And there's just times sometimes we'll get on like a third call and we have them all dialed in. "Hey, did you do that thing?" "Oh, not yet." "Oh. Oh, okay. What, what, what's stopping you from, you know, executing that?" And they're like, "Oh, you know, we're just, you know... I, I, I wanna wait till, you know, this, this thing happens and that thing happens," and it's just, it's, it's stuff like that. Um, or they just never do it. They say, "I don't think that's gonna work great for our business." And so, uh, one thing I wanna bring up is you said you've been in business for 34 years, correct?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 39:33

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 39:34

Okay. So that puts you in a like very, very, very small group of people,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 39:39

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 39:40

Like it's, it's... I mean, it's, it's like 0.000001, right? For, for restaurants going over 30 years and, and being suc- still successful, um, multi-unit. you said to me, you said today, you said, uh, "During our daily training..." Did you say that?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 39:54

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 39:55

What is that?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 39:56

we always do training- Family meal staff meal every day. So there's staff meal, and then there's 15 minutes of a standup- Right although we sit down. So yeah, so anywhere, so family meal is 30 minutes, and then there's a 15 to 30-minute training period.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 40:08

So I can probably like, we, we could probably sit in a call and I can just dissect your day-to-day operations and how you develop your people, train your people, all that good stuff. You already said you evolve, which is a big piece of what we, we teach, but that's the one thing right there where I tell people, I'm like, "The one thing that's, that's a completely underutilized tool, uh, that, that doesn't get either done co-consistently or correctly is pre-shifts," right? Layman's terms, pre-shifts. I

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 40:31

Most important

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 40:32

it daily or nightly training, but it's so important, right? Because it's a, it's a moment to train, Cause it's like to think even in a fine dining restaurant, even if you were crazy and trained for 30 days, which no one does, but even if you train for 30, it's still not enough time. They're not gonna learn everything. It's impossible. It's too much information. So we have to continuously train them, and you can use daily training to do that, but it has to be done right. Okay? And so a lot of times what we see is people aren't consistent with it. They don't use it for training. I say it has to be transformational, not informational. A lot of times it's just a bunch of information, right, what they can get off a piece of paper. It's like, "Here's how many covers we have." Okay? Like, we, we could spend this time training, right? really like, hey, hospitality, guest experience. And it's a good moment to align people, realign them, because I always tell people this, no matter how great of a server you have, no matter how great of an owner you are, a great of a leader you are, slowly but surely, if you don't pay attention, people will start turning into numbers, right? Because you're doing this day in and day out, day in and day out, day in and day out. Like your just mind just kind of drifts and you have to have a realignment. You have to have a, you know, a reset. You have to have someone that reminds you what you just said. You're serving 30 people today, or we're serving 30 people today. You're gonna serve someone and it has an impact on their lives. Like they're looking forward to this, and all you have to do is be present. "That's right. Thank you. I was actually thinking about anything but my shift today. I have all this stuff going on in my personal life and all this, and I just thank you for reminding me of that," right? And so those moments are so freaking important, and we can do it every single day. The problem is that, uh, well, I, I can't tell you how many times it's like that we get so much pushback from pre-shifts. And they go, "Oh, we have staggered in times." And, and I-- we, we have a system for all of that. It doesn't matter, but it's still, it's like this like, well, they're, you know, like it's, it's like s- like little things like that are so hard to get implemented once you im- when- but the results are so, guaranteed, right? And, and if you ever look at a successful business, I always tell that, if you ever look at a successful business, they do pre-shifts every day in a certain way, right? Every single day. Like that, it's guaranteed.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 42:24

So everybody each day gets a one-sheeter of kind of what to expect. Here are the new specials, here's the, you know, special people that are coming in, fact of the day, whatever else w- needs to go into, into that one-sheeter. they're sent that, an hour before shift starts, so they have it, something they can latch onto. One of the things I say to my staff all the time is, you know, I don't wanna... This time is precious. I don't wanna waste it talking about who was late or how, you know, your uniform looks Don't make me waste it on those things. let's use this so we can talk about, the fun new wines, the regions of the world, you know, why we're cooking the way we're cooking, the fun story of 20 years ago, the guy that came in and, you know, we thought he died, but then he came back the next day. You know, stuff like that. that's what I want to be doing during, during pre-shift. And, you know, for the most part that works, but sometimes I find myself going, "Uh, you You know, you gotta wear socks. you know, everybody's gotta have a belt on." And I just feel like that's such a waste of time and it, it hurts my soul when the, when we go that way

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 43:30

Yeah, it is a big waste of time, and it's totally avoidable

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 43:33

All right, so I have two questions for you, um, that I wanna answer before we get to the end of the podcast. The 30% rule, can you explain to people why the, what the 30% rule is, where the name comes from, and what your philosophy is with regard to that?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 43:46

Yeah. So 30% of things that matter, which is your labor, which is your people, right? If you, if you just focus on developing your people, you can see, uh, the most dramatic change in a restaurant within 30 days. The problem is that most restaurants and businesses in general spend no time developing their people. They give them the most minimal training, right? Managers suffer the most. Managers get, uh, are so underdeveloped in our, in our, in our industry, it's, it's unreal. and if you just spend, I always say 30 minutes a day, just spread out, two minutes here, five minutes here, two minutes here, just, just, just developing your people, spending time with your people, growing your people, you're gonna be successful. But the big-- the problem is most people don't. So if you focus on those 30% of things, you're gonna get crazy results

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 44:28

Well, and the other thing that I wanna come back to that I hadn't necessarily planned on asking in the beginning, but you mentioned it earlier and I would love for you to follow up on because I think we're all trying to figure this out in all of our fields. One of the things that I'm really grateful for is that AI may replace programmers, uh, may replace graphic artists. Um, it's not gonna replace the bartender. It's not gonna replace the waiter. Not gonna replace the maitre d that knows your name and gives you a hug. Um, but AI is going to be important in the restaurant business, and so for us standalone fine dining, couple of restaurants in a mid-sized city, how is AI going to affect us? How are we gonna be using it? It's a powerful tool, but other than doing the books, writing proposals, making systems easier in the background, how is AI gonna impact restaurants?

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 45:20

Well, it's gonna impact it a couple of different ways, in my opinion, right? So first things first, it's going to impact things like host stand, you know, like organizing tables, seating tables, and stuff like that. That's going to be different, right? Easier way we take reservations, um, maybe even the way we book parties, right? You can sell a party to someone on the phone Like you said, it's not gonna replace the bartender. it's going to-- it can sup-supplement training really well. So for example, we have a leadership, um, development AI tool, and it's really cool because, you know, you can basically say, you know, it'll be like for guest recovery, and it'll say, you know, you know, mild, medium, whatever, heavy. And you say, "Oh, it's a medium, you know, ex-experience." It'll say, "Okay, it's our anniversary and our food came out late and then it came out cold. You're gonna go up to the table. What do you say?" And you can record it and you're just like sitting and you say it. And like I'm telling you right now, this thing is crazy because I was actually doing it, I was doing a presentation with some people and I was-- I said my thing and I go, "Now look, guys," I'm like, "That's-- I've been doing this for a long time. It's probably not gonna have a lot of feedback for me, but..." And then boom, it gave me f- it was like, "Here's what you did great, okay? But here's what you could've done better." And I'm like, "Could've

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 46:24

Wow

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 46:25

And I looked, I'm like, "Oh my God, this is... No, that's actually really good. I didn't even think about that."

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 46:30

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 46:30

And so what it does is it's really good with emotional intelligence. So it actually tells you why you're saying what you're saying and then like also what could be like misread, you know, and, and how to say it better, how to say it in a, in a different tone, whatever. It just, and it's just amazing feedback and it makes you realize why you're saying what you're saying and it puts like picture to your thought, which is so powerful because now you're like, "I know the power of my words," right? "And, and the purpose. I can be more intentional when I'm talking to people, more concise." And so what's really cool is, is you can obviously have like a leader sit in front of this thing and go back and forth and it goes back. It'll go, "Do you wanna keep going?" 'Cause then it'll respond. The person will respond, right? And then you respond, it'll respond, you respond, it'll respond. It'll say like, you know, and it just, it goes back and forth and you can do another one and it's just, it's, it's endless training. But what's really powerful, 'cause we have like a GM do it with a new manager, right? So the GM will sit there and go, "Go ahead," right? And then the GM could also put in his, you know, "Hey," you know, "So great job," and, and, and watch and learn with that person. And they get so much training from this, uh, situational training, but they get to be spending time with their GM. So it's super powerful. So things like that we're gonna be supplemental

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 47:32

and this is a tool that, this is a tool that you offer or this is a tool that,

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 47:35

Yes

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 47:35

that... That's really, that's pretty- I'm- That's pretty wild I'm absolutely petrified. I was gonna say, I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit, but, you

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 47:42

I'll se- I'll send it to you. And it, it, it, listen, that, it's a good thing, right? 'Cause I'm not, I'm a big proponent, like I'm not happy with AI either, but also it's one of those things where it's like we can't be the old man yelling, uh, in the sky that we're not gonna email, we're not gonna use email,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 47:54

Love it.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 47:55

Like we,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 47:55

Yep

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 47:56

we, we have to adapt unfortunately. But like, but, but I wanna send you this because it's not, it's so much more powerful, like I said, when you have a, a leader training someone,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 48:05

Sure

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 48:05

It's cool to have as like, "Yeah, go do this thing," but like, it's like everything else that's digital. Like, are they gonna do it? How often are they... You know, just like I don't believe in that stuff. Like, go ho- go home and do your homework, and then we'll just gonna trust you 'cause you clicked a couple boxes and the program told me you clicked the boxes.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 48:20

Mm-hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 48:20

I, I'm more of a proponent of like, I wanna see it to believe it. And

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 48:22

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 48:23

have your leader there, it's super powerful. 'Cause then you have conversations, right? And all of a sudden it starts a conversation, and they're gonna have training that they've never, situations they've never been in before, and be able to walk through it without obviously the, the consequences of, of doing it wrong

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 48:34

All right. So, so let me clarify. I'm not a complete Luddite, and I am terrified of this whole thing. But I, I, what I do like is- I am a complete Luddite, sorry well, when I, when I, uh, come up with marketing ideas or I come up with any sort of ideas, I run them through ChatGPT now, and the w- where we are in the technology right now is ChatGPT will... may make some criticisms of my ideas or my punctuation or my spelling or the way I phrase something, and I'll be like, "Oh, oh, that's, that's..." And I'll reconsider it. It's eliminating my job. Or, yeah, exactly, my proofreader. And then, but also it may suggest things that I haven't thought of that I'm not gonna copy and paste, but I will say, "Oh, you know what? Let's see if we can incorporate that in." But I know this is, like, generation two, and in 10 years it's, I don't... Am I necessary? I don't know. I, it, it's, it's terrifying. I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say no, you're not necessary. I got this.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 49:25

say what capacity?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 49:27

I, well, I mean, I just, I, I liked... Look, Mark and I have owned two 125-seat restaurants in the same city for 20 and 34 years, and one of the things that we really like is this... We had our 34th anniversary just last Friday, you know, the mayor came, and a lot of our regular customers came, and some ex-employees came, and people who helped us build the place came. And this is an, a unique expression of our personality. Maybe there's some ego involved in that, and I hope we've made this town a better town, and the town has certainly been great to us. And I think when we use AI to kind of enhance our contribution, and to help us do what we want to do better, I'm in favor of that. But there's a little fear that, you know, it's like when AI supposedly wrote a novel that may have been on The New York Times bestseller list. You know? AI may have written some popular songs that seem like heartfelt human expressions. And what I don't want is, I don't want there to be Stage Left-like restaurants with cyber people in charge of them. Do you know what I mean? Uh, and look, we're not there yet, but I, I, I think it's great as a tool now, but I, I do have a healthy, uh, fear of that. I don't wanna be in that society.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 50:41

I would say think about it this way, okay? So think about like, for example, the pen- pendulum always swings, right? So think about Starbucks. I always use this example, like Starbucks, there was a point where everyone was thinking, "You know what? There's never gonna be another coffee shop except Starbucks."

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 50:54

Right

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 50:54

just won't. Like Starbucks is taking over. But what Starbucks did in that moment was it sprung, right, the pendulum to go the other way, and now you had coffee shops that created that-- w- that offered amazing coffee that was more expensive, that had a unique look to it, and to-- and feel, that made amazing food, and, and it, it sprung that generation of coffee shops, right? That we have, we have the luxury of enjoying now. And, and, and everyone was so sure that Starbucks would be it, right? But now it's like fierce competition. They're, they're not, you know... I walk down the street, there's 10 freaking coffee shops that aren't Starbucks. So what's gonna happen is, yes, it's just like, um, Applebee's or Chili's or whatever, I don't know, like one of those restaurants where they have the little payment machine on the, on the counter. You know what I'm

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 51:37

Yep. Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 51:39

I don't wanna do that.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 51:40

No

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 51:41

be in a restaurant like that. I don't like that. I don't wanna sit there and touch this thing that's probably dirty nine times out of 10, and then you have to like sit there and fill it out. You never see the server. I don't want that, right? But there's gonna be a place for that, right? There's going to be a place for that where they can, you know, now they have less staff, they can give you a more affordable price. So human connection will always be luxury, right? The restaurant will always be luxury. That's it. And the best restaurants, if you see it, that come out, that have the best food or the best experience, not even the best food, I'm sorry, but just really good food, really thought- thoughtful food, and a good experience and a great ambiance, it's always gonna come from someone that had a vision, right? From their past experiences. And then you pair that with the human experience. People are gonna pay for that. They're gonna pay more money for the human experience, and

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 52:22

Yeah.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 52:22

be in demand. one last thing I wanted to... I know we have to go, but one last thing I wanna add is that there's gonna be a point, right? 'Cause everyone, again, pendulum swings, right? Everyone's on, on their s- on their phone like this, right? Every generation now, they're like this, they do this. We're-- We come from a generation, there was a time before the internet where when we had to have entertainments, we had to call someone and meet with them, right?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 52:41

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 52:42

That's the only way we could be entertained. There's like VHS's, there's five channels, and then we gotta go meet with our friends. And so we looked forward to meeting with our friends and working on personal skills. And you maybe meet someone new, and that would be freaking awesome, too. And you worked on these personal skills. Now people don't have that, and they just, they want, want to be entertained. It's instant, right? And

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 52:58

Yep

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 52:58

glued to their phones. What's gonna happen, social media, everything, is gonna become so hard. AI is gonna be so hard to deter if it's, if it's real or fake. And then it's gonna be like, "Hey, you know what, guys? I'm gonna, I'm gonna email the restaurant guys, right? I'm gonna t- I'm gonna send them a quick DM." But then it's like, "Wait, is that your AI bot or you?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 53:14

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 53:15

cool. Hold on. Let me call you. I'm gonna call you." And I'm like talking to you for a sec. And I go, "Wait a minute. Is this your AI bot or is this actually you? Or is this your AI?" "Oh no, no, it's me, Preston, I swear." And you're like, "No, I don't tr- I need to see you in person.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 53:26

Yeah

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 53:26

see don't trust you this, I don't trust you. I need to see you in person right now." And so people are gonna wanna gather in person more than ever once this AI gets too crazy. Where do people gather?

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 53:36

Restaurants, bars

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 53:37

Restaurants, bars, coffee shops.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 53:40

Yep

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 53:41

people are gonna be packed in, and now they're trying to get away from all the freaking AI and the fake stuff. I wanna go be served by a person. I wanna go be served by another human being and meet that person. So I don't-- They're definitely not, in my opinion, that I don't see them replacing r- uh, restaurants. But lazy restaurants, yes. restaurants that don't wanna invest in their people, that don't wanna develop their people, that don't care, like you guys freaking care, I could tell. They don't want, they don't care enough to say, "I'm gonna build," right? And, uh, it's, they're, they're, they're not gonna survive, right? But the people that bring in this great experience, that take the time to develop their people, that take the time to make sure that their, their guests get taken care of, they're gonna thrive

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 54:16

You know, I, there's something we didn't touch on, I just wanna come back to it just for one second. You know, one of the things that you talk about a lot in your videos, a- and, and we talk about all the time on, on this show, is what's happening in the marketplace now. And what's happening in the marketplace right now is you better be the cheapest or you better be the best, and that middle is just getting slaughtered. Every day I see more and more of that middle just getting crushed. and I appreciate that you're helping people be the best, 'cause I know you're not helping people be the cheapest. No. But you're definitely helping people be the best. And, uh, I wanna see more people with the philosophies that, that you espouse

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 54:57

Us, right? We, yeah, and I, I agree 100%. And, there's so many things happening, but one thing that's definitely happening is that inflation happened, but, but people's wages didn't go up, right? So they're

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 55:06

All right

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 55:06

crunch. So they're just spending less, and they're gonna spend... And they're gonna say, "I'm gonna go to a place I trust that's gonna take care of me." Even if I-- you could see the statistics. People will take a lesser desired product if they get a consistency, if they, if they know they have the comfort of consistency. And that's really important to understand, is that I will go somewhere that I don't even want. I'd rather eat over here, but I'm gonna go over here 'cause I just trust this experience better, that I know exactly what I'm gonna get. and it's kind of like the employee experience, right? They're gonna stay at the job that they know exactly what they're gonna get day in and

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 55:35

Yeah.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 55:35

out

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 55:36

I, you know, I, I, we are so blessed to be busier than ever in this, in the world we're in right now. Uh, so grateful for, the stars aligning and somehow I chose the right path and- Yeah and- Yeah it's, it's working out. But, there's a lot of restaurants really suffering right now. Yeah. And, I'm sure you are helping fewer of them suffer

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 55:55

Yeah, that's my goal. But it, it's all philosophies that you guys adapt, right? So you talked about daily trainings, but one thing that's really important I want to touch on before we go is that you guys said it best, is that the employee experience is just as important as the guest experience. Danny Meyers talks about that. Everybody talks about that. But I, I wanna tell you, you know, I have a, I do a lot of, you know, presentations and I talk and I, and, and one thing I always talk about is Chick-fil-A. I use that as a case study because they're so big, right? And they've done it s- at such a scale. And I try and show people that anything's possible. Like, you don't think you can do it in your three restaurants? Like, Chick-fil-A's done it in freaking 4,000. I promise you it's possible.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 56:28

Hmm.

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 56:28

But one thing I always talk about is when I get done, I can't tell you how many times a parent has came up to me and said, "Hey, my son started working at Chick-fil-A and he got better grades." The last time I did a presentation, a mom came up to me and said, "My son was getting into drugs. He was, like, flunking out of high school. He got a job at Chick-fil-A, and now he graduated high school, like, by the skin of his teeth, and now he works for the city, and he's been working for the city for five years and he's doing great." I-- and

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 56:52

That's great

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 56:52

thanks to Chick-fil-A. That's, like, impact,

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 56:55

Absolutely

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 56:57

the impact we could have as business owners, and that's an impact we should seek, right? Not use people as a cog, but use them to develop them both. If you develop them outside of work, if you make them better outside of work, they're gonna perform better inside of work

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 57:09

How you do one thing is how you do everything for

preston_1_05-26-2026_095956 57:12

Yes

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_125951 57:13

of the people in the world, so. And teaching young people that is a mission that we share. Uh, this has been a great podcast. I'm so glad we invited you to come on. Thanks, Preston. You can find out more about Preston Li. You can follow him on Instagram at, @the30rule. we'll put all the information i- in the show notes, and, uh, you can always find out more about us at RestaurantGuysPodcast.com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

the-restaurant-guys_3_05-26-2026_135934 57:35

Hey there. Boy, he was as much fun in person as I thought. Yeah, I, I... Listen, I've been following him, and he almost never says anything that I... Like, if I disagree with him, I'm like, "Oh, I disagree with 2% of that." Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, well- It's- he, he said a couple of things that I kinda left unsaid, or that podcast would've gone on for a long, long time. Mm-hmm. But one of the things he s- he said, he just worked it in there. He didn't make a, a, a note of it, but he was talking about when management goes in to change something, he started with, "Hey, listen, we've failed you guys." Mm-hmm. "We need to make some changes." Yeah. Every time we make a major change, 'cause we're like, "Oh my God, We've gotta make a major change in the way we do this or that," or... We always start with, "Okay, guys, w- we have failed." We did it wrong. "We, we've done this wrong." We did it wrong. We know we did it wrong. "We take all the responsibility for that we're here. Now we're all gonna have to make it better." It's not like, "You guys fucked up, so we're gonna have to-" Mm-hmm "fix it now." And, and you will... You are now responsible for following these new policies and procedures, and, and you are now responsible for these things. But until I give you the, the route to follow- Right I'm responsible for those things. Yeah, he's 100%, 100%. Well, and look, I just like his whole philosophy, and I really do... It just kept coming back to me. I never quite framed it this way until we were preparing for this show. Mm-hmm. And it's like hospitality is kindness- Mm-hmm and service is the way, is the way that you can structure it so that people can deliver the kindness. Yeah. 'Cause I think very often you go to a restaurant and you get bad service, and it's terrible, and it... And look, the one thing I find is unforgivable is when you get an uncaring waiter who doesn't give a shit about you. Yep. And I'm like, "Well, you know, screw you." But very often you get lousy service, and you feel bad 'cause, like, the waiter's trying. Yeah. He's trying. Yeah, you see him. The bartender's trying to get my attention. He's got 19 tables and he's- Either that- sprinting or they don't know what to do. Right. You know? And, and, and I'm always, when I'm in a place that doesn't have great training and they do have great empathy- Mm-hmm it doesn't mean I'm necessarily going back- but I feel bad. I feel bad. Actually, frankly, it means I'm definitely not going back. Yeah. that's part of what's out there right now. What I loved is, and, and my favorite part about this show is, if you create the right structure, people will follow the procedures And you know what? I think that w- hopefully with this show, one of the things we do for people who are in the industry, and I don't think necessarily just the restaurant industry- Yeah well, we've heard from people over the years who said, you know, "You've... Listening to your show has helped me change the way that I run my business-" Mm-hmm or I run my volunteer organization-" Yeah. Ab- absolutely or, or whatever. And I think that following this guy, @the30rule, on Instagram, we get inspiration from him. You know? No, no question about it. So, uh, it's real cool stuff. No question about it. Anyway, I hope you guys have enjoyed, uh, the latest hour with The Restaurant Guys. I know it's thrilling. I'm Mark Pascal. I'm Francis Shaw. We are The Restaurant Guys. You can like. You can follow. You could even subscribe, and that would really help us out a lot, to The Restaurant Guys at Restaurant Guys Podcast .com. See you next time