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[00:00:05] Mike: Hi, guys. Michael Hicks here with my good friend, Charlie Eich, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Charlie has a restaurant down the street from a home we built a few years ago. That’s how we met. We’ve become friends. We’re getting ready to open a pizza restaurant together. Lots of cool things going.

[00:00:21] I recently listened to a book called Unreasonable Hospitality. And when I heard the title and started listening to the book, the first person I thought of was Charlie. And so I wanted to have him on here and talk a little bit about that. But before we get into that, I want Charlie to come on and tell a little bit about himself and his background in the restaurant industry.

[00:00:43] Charlie: Great. Hey, Mike. Good to see you, buddy. And thanks for inviting me here. And prior to me introducing myself, when you called me and said, hey, man, I want you to listen to this book, it made me think of you. I downloaded the book, and I listened to it, and it was a giant compliment. So I appreciate that.

[00:00:58] Because when I was listening to this book, I thought, man, I’m nowhere near that great because the guy that put that book together, he’s on the top of the top 1% of customer service, for sure. And I think we’re all just trying to be better every day. But yes, like Mike said, we met, I guess, three, four years ago now, and Mike was a customer in the restaurant. 

[00:01:20] We hit it off and became friends. I’ll be 55 on my next birthday, and I got roped into this lifestyle from my father who owned a restaurant in Libertyville, Illinois. About the time I was old enough to bus tables, I guess I was probably somewhere between 10 and 12.

[00:01:39] I got my first taste of the service business in my dad’s restaurant. And it was a smaller place, VFW, did fish fries on Fridays, which is a big thing up north. And just fell in love with it. And throughout school, didn’t really know for sure what I wanted to do. I thought at one point in time I wanted to be a lawyer.

[00:01:58] And I certainly am glad that I didn’t take that route. Not that there’s anything wrong with lawyers, but I’m sure that I’m much more happier in customer service than I would have been litigating in a courtroom. But I went to work for a national chain for a Pizza Hut right out of high school and stayed with them for about eight years.

[00:02:16] And when I left, I was an area director. And then I just dabbled around in some other restaurants. And about, I guess, probably about 25 years ago now, I had an opportunity to buy in as a partner with a restaurant group that I was doing some consulting for. And since that time, I’ve owned eight restaurants, and I sold food for a food service company at one point in time during that spell. 

[00:02:44] Just love the business most days. Not every day, but most days, we love the business and what we can bring to it, and the involvement with customers, and the service aspect, and the creativity of menus, the staff, pretty much all aspects of it. And it’s what I do. It’s who I am now. You see, when I sent an email, it says, Charlie Eich, husband, father, restaurant guy. It’s what I do and what I love.

[00:03:13] Mike: I think it has to be important to you, and you have to have a love for it to do it. There’s not many people that want to dive out into the restaurant industry. The failure rate’s high. And you’ve done it multiple times, so I think that speaks a lot.

[00:03:27] To me, what I see in a failing business is more of lack of preparation, lack of knowledge, lack of understanding of what they’re getting into more than, hey this was a restaurant that failed. I think those numbers are skewed because grandmother decided she wanted to open a restaurant down the street because she makes good lasagna. You’ve had your share of hardship. I’ve seen it. 

[00:03:53] Charlie: Indeed.

[00:03:54] Mike: And you’ve overcome it.

[00:03:56] But you’ve taken a location that’s not on the main drag, it’s off a little bit, but it’s near a boat ramp, and you’ve just created a feel around it. Talk a little bit about the fall of Cheeburger Cheeburger, and the invent of river drifters.

[00:04:13] Charlie: So I had a restaurant downtown Chattanooga directly across from the world’s largest freshwater aquarium, and it was a very popular place. When we first got there, the restaurant was struggling quite a bit. The wrong people were in place. It was one of those scenarios you were just speaking of where the family, thought, man, I bet it would be really fun to have a restaurant.

[00:04:37] He was a pharmacist, and his wife, two very good friends to this day. They’re wonderful people. She was a kindergarten teacher. And they thought, man, wouldn’t it be fun if we owned a restaurant? And so they put a bunch of money in there, probably the tune of around half a million dollars at the time, and they opened up– it was a ’50s diner milkshake burger type place.

[00:05:00] And they soon realized that, man, this is really not fun. Restaurant business is a unique beast. There’s a situation every day. It could be anything from a walk-in cooler going out to catching somebody stealing, you name it. If it can go wrong, it’s going to eventually happen in the restaurant business.

[00:05:24] And I went in there on a six-week contract with them to do some consulting and ended up staying, ended up buying the restaurant out from them completely. And the restaurant was built in a historic building that had been there since 1876. And just through natural occurrences, there was some degradation on the upstairs of the premise.

[00:05:46] And we think that it was related to a cement floor that was poured there at one point in time prior to us arriving. But for whatever reason, the restaurant physically, literally collapsed. We had a little bit of indication that there was a large problem, and we had shut the restaurant down about 48 hours before that happened, but yes, it literally– 

[00:06:06] Mike: How long had you operated there before that took place?

[00:06:10] Charlie: I had been there in an ownership position. I believe it was right at about 17 years. And when you do, I don’t know, anything for that long, it becomes an extension of you, if you will. It was what we were known for in the industry. We had a lot of friends that owned restaurants, managed restaurants.

[00:06:34] And they tied that restaurant to us, to my wife and I and our family, as part of our identity. It’s who we were. And I hate to use the word because it’s a little corny, but it became an iconic place, an institutionalized place. It was a place when you went to Tennessee, in Chattanooga, if you visited the aquarium, there’s a high chance that you were going to come see us.

[00:06:55] And we had a good local following as well, but we were definitely dependent on the tourist business in the summertime. And so we were almost like losing a child, if you will. We went through a lot of emotions. I’ll never forget it. I was there when it happened. I actually got it on video.

[00:07:12] I could see that the building was shifting, and my truck was parked next to it, where I parked every day. And I had an engineer who was out there. And he specialized in historic buildings, and he was coming in from Knoxville to visit with us and see what we could do to prevent this from happening. And there’s a long story about litigation and stuff with the building owner because we were renting the property.

[00:07:35] We didn’t own it. So I can’t get into specific details about it because we’re still there six years later. But I moved my truck, and as I was walking back around the front of the building, I could physically see that something big is getting ready to happen. And I told the guys that were standing there, guys, watch out.

[00:07:55] It’s fixing to go. And I probably used a few more colorful words than that, that I’m going to keep them from the podcast right now. I guarantee I did, honestly. So we all moved out of the way, and, sure enough, man, that thing just came crashing down in a big cloud of dust, and my heart was ripped out.

[00:08:16] You spent 17 years investing your heart and soul to build a business to where it was sustaining our family. And it was a profitable business. When we took it over, it was losing money, and you’re proud of it. I don’t know. It’s like having a kid that moves out at 18 and you got that empty mess center. And we were like, all right, what are we going to do?

[00:08:39] So I like to ride motorcycles when I’m not working, and I was out on the road that my current restaurant is on because it’s a very popular area for motorcycle riding in East Tennessee, and I saw this little place on the side of the road there, and it had a for lease, made the call to the agent, and looked at it the next day with my wife, and I said, it’s in an out there location off the beaten path. 

[00:09:07] It’s clearly going to be a destination spot. I’m not sure we’ll ever do the business we were doing downtown, but it’s going to be a fun experience. We didn’t need to make a ton of money. Our house was paid for. And I thought, I’ll probably be the cook, and you’ll probably be the server, but we’re going to have a good time. And five years later– it’ll be five years, actually, July 2nd, since we opened– we’re rocking. We’re rocking and rolling, man. We’ve built it far beyond. We’ve exceeded the expectation we had. I’ll put it like that.

[00:09:40] Mike: And that’s why I wanted you to tell that story, because I feel like it leans on the culture that you built around Cheeburger and the following that you had from there. I think that rolled over into the new restaurant. And that’s because of the culture and the environment that you’ve built around your space. So tell us a little bit about that. What makes you unreasonably hospitable? 

[00:10:08] Charlie: I think the key thing that you’re talking about there is culture. And every place you work, every restaurant you eat at, every business out there has rules, and rules govern a behavior, but they don’t foster a culture or your ideals or your values or your principles. 

[00:10:31] I’m a customer service freak personally, and I think if you go into whatever you’re doing for yourself with the pride you have in yourself or the values that you establish for yourself, that’s what helps create the culture in your staff, and in your crew, and those people that are around you.

[00:10:53] So, for example, let’s just use a chain place. We’ll just call TGI Fridays. There’s nothing wrong with TGI Fridays at all, but they have a specific step of rules that you have to institute when you work there, just say, as a server. You’re going to do a meet-and-greet. You’re going to ask the customer what they’d like to drink. 

[00:11:12] You’re going to suggest an appetizer. You’re going to go away. You’re going to come back with their drinks and the appetizer. You’re going to do one follow-up visit. Then you’re going to take the order. You’re going to put the order in. There’s a chain of events that has to happen, steps of service.

[00:11:24] And I think where a lot of places fail and what makes more successful places more successful is not the experience, not the steps of service that people are going through, but the way that they’re made to feel while they’re there.

[00:11:43] If you look at me, smile at me, talk to me, if you make somebody feel valued, if you do more than go– when you were working on your house, you would come in and often eat by yourself. And I think that the words we choose sometimes, if you’re greeted, the person who comes in to eat lunch alone with, hi, just you? Makes you feel more like, yeah, just me. Couldn’t find anybody to eat lunch with me today. So here I am. 

[00:12:11] But if you said, will anybody be joining you today? And you said, no, no, it’s just me today. Okay, great, sir. Right this way. And if I bring you a magazine or something to keep you busy while you’re sitting there waiting for your food, just one little thing, if you can take one little thing and find a 100 of them, you’re going to make a huge difference in exceeding somebody’s expectation.

[00:12:33] And I think that’s what really sets places that are successful apart more so than others, is those little pieces, those little attention to details, to make somebody feel like you really value them. If I’m at the restaurant, there’s not a single table that I don’t go to and touch. And by touch, I mean go and have a conversation and greet them. That’s a restaurant lingo, touching tables.

[00:12:57] But I’m going to go as the owner and tell you how much I value your business and that I appreciate you being there today. And I’m not going to ask you if everything’s okay, because I’m not shooting for okay. I’m going to ask you if everything is cooked perfectly for you. 

[00:13:12] I’m going to ask you if your service is great today, if we’re doing a great job taking care of you. I’m going to shake your hand and introduce myself if you’ve never been there before. I’m going to make sure that the servers are doing those things on a regular basis to build relationships.

[00:13:26] When you started this podcast a minute ago, the gentleman who’s running it came over there with one of those Hollywood-style scene markers, a clacker. And I used to keep one of those in the restaurant, and I would write my pre-shift notes on it. And this was at Cheeseburger Cheeseburger. And because I always wanted to emphasize the you’re on stage mentality, you are not here to just take an order.

[00:13:50] A drunk monkey can go to a table, and take an order, and go ring it in, and get people food, and say bye. But you’re here to provide an experience. And we used to actually start our meetings. I’d write down all my meeting notes. That one was Hollywood clacker scene marker type things just to re– and they thought it was cheesy, and it was cheesy.

[00:14:10] I’m not going to lie about it. But it emphasized that point that we were trying to get over every day. You’re on stage. You are part of an experience that somebody is having. You’re not just an order taker. We’re not here just to push people through the door, get them in, feed them, and push them back out.

[00:14:26] We want them to leave feeling good about where they just ate. And I think that culture is more important. I’m not a big rules guy. Never have been. I’m more of a rebel. You probably see that in my personality. I don’t work well for other people in that if they don’t maintain that style, that philosophy about the importance of culture and the experience, it’ll make or break a company or a restaurant, a church. It doesn’t matter.

[00:15:04] Mike: You hit a lot of things there, and I’m going to go back and catch a few of those. We don’t always think about and don’t always remember what somebody said, what somebody did, but we do remember how they made us feel. And the other thing that you hit on is words do matter. And the things that you say to a customer, in our sense, it may be a guest, and how you respond to those guests affect everything about their stay.

[00:15:36] I read a post not too long ago. It was someone who was staying at their property, and they saw a spider. It’s like, we get that. We’re out in the middle of the woods, and everybody sees a brown recluse. It’s automatically a copperhead and a brown recluse. If it’s a snake, it’s poisonous. And if it’s a spider, I don’t care if it’s granddaddy long legs. But they replied with, we just sprayed, or we just had chemicals applied. And I don’t know if you knew it or not, but I used to work for Ecolab back in the day.

[00:16:21] So Ecolab does a lot of different things in the service industry, and they’re revolving around pest elimination, and then dishes, and soaps, and mats, and all those things that keep businesses going. I didn’t say pest control. I said pest elimination. There was nowhere on the vehicles that we drove that said pest. You’d never know what that vehicle was if it was pulled up in front of a restaurant at night unless you just knew Ecolab.

[00:16:52] But we didn’t spray chemicals. We apply product. And you going back to how you approach that guest, just you today, or do you have anyone else coming? That’s huge and how somebody’s feeling. That might be their worst day, and they’re coming in there by themselves, and I think we can approach our guests the same way when we’re dealing with a tenant at a short-term rental.

[00:17:18] The experience starts and ends well before they come to your property and well after they leave. It’s the follow-up, the touches. And what’s impressed me about you the most, is you go in there and speak to these customers, and you take the time to learn their names. And not just you. If I go in there– the servers know my name as well, and as soon as I walk in the door, hey, Mike. And that’s what keeps people coming back.

[00:17:43] Your food is great, but you could have mediocre food but have a wonderful atmosphere, and people will keep coming back. But if you have mediocre food and a horrible atmosphere– if you have a mediocre stay, a mediocre house, and an amazing experience, I’m more likely to come back and visit versus if you have that mediocre house and the touch with the host was horrible and they were hateful and rude. It applies across all industries, but that’s huge. And using your words wisely and choosing what to say.

[00:18:18] Charlie: Chik-fil-A, I think everybody knows if you say thank you and you’re greeted with my pleasure, that’s a Chik-fil-A-ism. And I think that’s a company that’s done an outstanding job building a reputation for customer service excellence. Disney is another company that also has that reputation.

[00:18:40] And I’ll share it with everybody else. When the housing market crashed in 2008 and the BP oil spill was out there, and they were still picking up tar balls on the beach, my wife and I were looking to try and find something for ourselves, just for personal use. And we bought a condo down on Perdido Key.

[00:18:57] And after, my HOA fees started going up more and more, but now maybe we can make some money off this thing. So we did the Airbnb thing for a while, and it was definitely a learning experience, but one thing that I think that helped us is when we put together our initial description of the property. I said, this isn’t your typical investment rental property. 

[00:19:21] You’re not going to find elevators and granite floors. This is a place that’s a second home for us. You’re going to see our books and personal belongings in the bottom drawer in the bedroom. And it’s going to feel more like you’re staying at your cousin’s house than an upscale rental property. 

[00:19:39] And it wasn’t upscale. It was a stick building that was built in, I think, 1985. It showed some wear, but I let everybody know that right out of the gate. But then we still had folded towels, and did the toilet paper at a little point, and did all the little extra-type goodies that you would find in one of your places or on a cruise ship.

[00:20:00] Everybody’s always amazed that you can fold a towel eight different ways in the same day when they see, oh, they know I’m not in my room. They’re sneaking in here and they’re rearranging stuff and doing it. But those little things that make people go, wow. So I think exceeding expectation is a huge thing, particularly– 

[00:20:15] Mike: Setting expectations on the front end and then exceeding those expectations is huge. 

[00:20:20] Charlie: Yeah, absolutely. So let’s use my restaurant for an example. I think we’ve got really good food now. We’re not going to get a Michelin star. We’re not putting that kind of food out. We’ve got burgers, and we’ve got salads, and we’ve got tacos, and we’ve got a giant variety of stuff, but we’re not trying to do braised short ribs, and duck liver, and fancy stuff.

[00:20:43] Now, where we are, obviously, it’s along the river. It’s an old building that used to be a grocery store. If I put candles and white linen and had everybody wearing tuxedos, I’d be living on one and a half and two-star reviews. People aren’t expecting to have a five-course meal when they walk in the door.

[00:21:02] I think the perception of where we are is more of a roadside. I hate to use the word, but it’s been circulated before. Great food for a roadside dive. And we weren’t shooting for that.I think it has more of that Florida oyster house kind of feel to it, very laid back.

[00:21:23] It’s an anomaly in this business because I rarely ever get a complaint, and I think a lot of that has to do– obviously, service is a huge factor in it, but the vibe, the field, the expectation, I think, is really a predecessor, or a precursor, or whatever the right word is to that whole experience as a whole.

[00:21:44] People are more shocked by the level of service, and we’ve got some really good food as well. But I don’t think that’s the expectation when you first walk in the door. We’re not dirty, we’re not dingy. I just got one of the worst health inspections we’ve had in the five years, and it was in 98 because we rolled 600s in a row, which that’s just constant follow-up. 

[00:22:09] That’s going in there and checking personally things every day. And then last time we got a 99, and this time we got 98. So it’s not that we’re dirty or somebody is not going to expect that our crew looks bad because you know our crew looks great. But I think just the location and the casual atmosphere, having that in combination with some really good food exceeds that expectation. 

[00:22:35] And I think that’s really important in any business. If you give the guest more than they’re expecting, you’ve got that wow factor. And that wow factor, if I stay at an Airbnb, or a rental property, or eat at a restaurant, or go to Home Depot, or Lowe’s, or wherever, and I get service that is beyond what I expected, I’m going to tell you about it because we talk about these kind of things. 

[00:22:59] That’s one of the things in our relationship we’re discussing, we’re critiquing, we’re trying to improve ourselves, we’re trying to share things that, if I find a good place to, I don’t know– if there’s a year in the home business and you buy tools, or if I see a great deal somewhere, I’m like, hey, Mike, they got this robe you saw over here. It’s 99 bucks. It’s usually 300. Or the service was amazing at this place. Do you go to Lowe’s, or do you go to Home Depot? I’m sharing it. 

[00:23:25] And the same is true for a bad experience. You’re going to share it. You’re going to tell your friends, man, don’t go there. This place is a mess. And the owner’s got a terrible attitude. You exceed expectations, people talk about it, and word of mouth is the absolute best advertising, particularly in my business.

[00:23:40] Mike: We’ve created these experiences and these short-term rentals that are shareable, Instagrammable, TikTokable, however you want to say it. You talk about the vibe, and your employees, your servers, they put off the same vibe. They have that energy.

[00:23:56] In the short-term rental world, our energy, a lot of times, is focused on the turnover teams, the cleaners and the inspectors. We’re sending out a cleaning team, and then we’re sending out an inspector to check behind that cleaning team to make sure that nothing was missed. How do you convey that vibe, that culture, to a new hire, to your employees to put out the feel that you’re wanting felt?

[00:24:18] Charlie: It’s difficult, honestly. And one thing, you said new hires. My turnover is relatively low. I’m one of the fortunate ones in this business because if you’re online, if you’re in these different restaurant groups like I am, you’ll see that everybody’s asking those questions, like, how can I find people?

[00:24:36] It’s just so hard, and nobody cares today. Everybody’s got a terrible attitude, and we’re having to pay so much more than we were pre-COVID, pre-2020, which is true. The wages are paying probably– I don’t have anybody making less than a double minimum wage in the back of the house.

[00:24:54] And my servers make great bank because of customers like you that come in and take care of them. So when I do get a new hire, it’s very difficult. I’ve got, I think, 26 or 27 people on staff right now. We’re a family. We take care of each other. It’s like being adopted in your 20s or something. To go into a new family and build those relationships out of the gate is probably really difficult in my restaurant.

[00:25:24] But I think once you’ve established culture in whatever you’re doing, people pick up on it easily. If you were in a situation where the culture was terrible, to change that culture does not happen overnight. That’s a year to five-year process in the most companies to change how we operate our principles, our morals, our standards, our ethics, not the rules.

[00:25:55] Because you can change rules. Nobody likes rules. People don’t care about rules. When I have a new person come in, it’s easier for them to go into a situation where we’ve already established what our value systems are when it comes to taking care of customers, and they pick up on it, and you don’t want to be that person. You know what I’m saying? 

[00:26:15] Because most people know. If you’ve got a good attitude in the morning, when you got out of bed, or if you’ve got a bad attitude, you know it. But we all push each other to help each other. Somebody starts falling behind, we’re a team. You get somebody to help you. 

[00:26:31] It’s easy to crash in a restaurant business. Sometimes you’re getting your butts kicked. Somebody couldn’t make it to work. They had a flat tire in the driveway. They don’t know how to change the type. Things happen, especially when you’re dealing with 20, 25, 28, 30 different personalities.

[00:26:46] But once you’ve established that your belief system in the restaurant, it makes it easier for somebody to slide in. But you have to establish it. You have to ask yourself those questions. How am I going to handle an upset customer? How do I handle somebody that’s just a bitchy person? How do you handle these different situations? What’s my value system? And it’s not always easy because sometimes people are mean.

[00:27:12] Mike: A lot of times, we end up with similar situations. It’s different equipment. It’s different people, but it’s similar situations. The pump on the hot tub goes out. They forgot to put the s’mores kit out. They had a flat tire coming to work or forgot they had to clean today. And then you’re scrambling to clean a unit at check in time. How does that guest feel about it? How did you make them feel about it? Are you sympathetic to their need? And how are you responding to that?

[00:27:46] Charlie: Right. Sometimes I have to get myself in check. Sometimes I have to walk myself to the back and have a conversation with myself honestly. I think anybody who deals in customer service on a regular basis is going to have those days where you’re just like, okay. Count to three, Charlie.

[00:28:06] Don’t let it come up. Once it comes out of your mouth, you can’t pull it back in. I’ll share an experience that I had with you with my place in Florida more related directly to the listeners here. I had a couple check in, and I was unaware of it, but the garbage disposal was broken. I guess it probably broke from the previous people who had rented the place, and they had left some food in there, and it stunk. So the guy was very upset. Well, this is unacceptable.

[00:28:38] And mind you, this was not a fancy, fancy place. And I said, let me see what I can do, and I’ll get right back with you. And I called the maintenance guy, and this is on a Monday. And the maintenance guy wasn’t going to be able to get there until Wednesday, and he was going to replace it.

[00:28:55] Okay, that’s fine. And then Wednesday comes along, and it wasn’t fine because he didn’t want the maintenance guy to be there while they were at the beach because all of their personal belongings were there and he didn’t trust the maintenance guy. And since we couldn’t run the dishwasher because it was all tied in with the disposal some way or another, they were going to have to hand wash the dishes.

[00:29:18] And that was not going to be acceptable because his wife has something where they can’t eat out because of her allergies. She has to prepare everything at home. And now she’s upset because she’s having to do a ridiculous amount of dishes. And they want me to comp their five days for free. 

[00:29:35] I promise you I probably handled it terribly because I was like, that ain’t going to happen. And in hindsight, there’s probably a million ways that I could have done it better. But what I’ve learned in the restaurant business is you can’t win an argument with a customer. 

[00:29:49] And if you’ve got to swallow your pride once in a while and say, you’re right, if I were in your situation, I would feel the same way. How can I make this up to you? Then you’re going to win. If somebody eats all their food and then says, the burger was kind of dry, I’m not going to charge them for it. 

[00:30:09] And they’re going to feel like they got one, and they’re going to come back, and they’re going to bring people. And they’re going to spend more money. And at the end of the day, while it might be difficult sometimes in those situations to take that high road because you want to just say, well, you ate the whole thing– 

[00:30:28] Mike: Yeah. 

[00:30:28] Charlie: You don’t win. You can’t win in that situation. You do what’s best for the business, and you do what’s going to let you sleep good at night knowing you did the right thing.

[00:30:39] Mike: Yeah. Sometimes it’s okay to be right and still give in. To argue to a fault that you’re right and the customer’s wrong is it’s a lose-lose. And like you say–

[00:30:52] Charlie: Arguing with your wife.

[00:30:53] Mike: Yeah. I’d rather give away a 15-dollar burger and fries and then to lose a customer for life. What’s the lifetime value of that customer?

[00:31:05] Charlie: Oh, a lot. Your average consumer frequent about five restaurants on a rotating basis. And it’s hard to get one of those. And if you get in that rotation, you don’t want to lose that. In my business also, on that same note, I think it’s a knee jerk reaction, a lot of times for servers, if something’s not perfect, to go, hey, can I take that off their bill? 

[00:31:28] And 90% of the time, more than that, customers don’t want something for free. But if you give them something extra, then you win. So what I’ve found is, hey, it took a little longer than it should have for Table 4’s fries to come out. Can I take them off their check? No, I still want their five bucks, 4.50, whatever it is, for an order of fries, but I will go to the table. I will apologize, say, hey, I’m not sure what happened, but it was unacceptable. Would you guys mind if I bought you a dessert to share? 

[00:32:00] So I can put out a dessert that might cost me 3 and 50 cents and still collect the $5 for the fries, apologize with sincerity, give them something they weren’t expected, and I promise they’re happier that way and feel better about the experience they just had rather than for somebody to go, hey, we took that off your check. Sorry about that. It’s all in how you do it and how you make people feel.

[00:32:25] Mike: Let’s talk a little bit about the new build, the new restaurant, and how you’re going to set that up. So it’s in an up-and-coming neighborhood. It’s in an up-and-coming area. It’s speculative. But I feel you have that experience, and I feel like you have the history with your customers that a lot of that will drag over.

[00:32:45] A lot of the customers that I’ve had in the past will drag over. But how will you go in and set this up to make it exceptional and stand out? Talk a little bit about the 95-5 rule and how that will apply to this new building.

[00:33:02] Charlie: I think, first off, the most important thing is the team that we create. It’s being selective. And a lot of times in hiring situations, the same basic questions are put out there. Tell me about something that you liked about your last employer. Tell me what you hated about your last employer. Tell me the accomplishment in life that you’re the most proud of. 

[00:33:27] What are your goals? Where do you want to be five years from now? And I really, honestly, I don’t use any of those questions when I’m interviewing people. I’ll ask silly questions. And I actually read this one. I haven’t asked this one, but I liked it. Are you a Miracle Whip or a mayonnaise person? 

[00:33:45] What does that have to do with anything? But I think what’s important is getting to know somebody and getting to know what their personality is like. Do they have a sense of humor? How do they handle stress? Not all those regular canned interview questions that you’re going to read in a book from 1972. It’s not 1972 anymore.

[00:34:09] Mike: We were talking yesterday about I’ve applied for a lot of jobs and had a lot of different jobs over the years all jobs that I was able to work night shift and then build my construction business during the day. And one of those was the railroad. Ecolab was one where they do an Enneagram test. 

[00:34:32] And they’re asking you a 100 questions, and it might be the same question worded three different ways. Rate yourself on a one to five. And I didn’t get hired at a lot of those jobs. I’m like, man, I’m so qualified. But it was my personality. It was the personality that didn’t fit for that job. 

[00:34:46] And when you say, are you Miracle Whip or mayonnaise? I’d be them the interviewee that would say mayonnaise because I probably– but you’re wanting the guy or the lady that’s going to laugh and say, well, I like mayonnaise, or I like Miracle Whip and mayonnaise, and elaborate a little bit because then you’ve seen it. You’ve got somebody that’s outgoing and a little more assertive, but I’m timid, and I’m going to say, yeah, mayonnaise.

[00:35:13] Charlie: Right. And I wouldn’t hire you.

[00:35:16] Mike: Yeah, I know. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not a good hire. 

[00:35:18] Charlie: Not be a server. Yeah, no, because got to have that extroverted personality be a successful server and not so much in the kitchen. The kitchen is a whole different ball of wax.

[00:35:30] Mike: So know what you’re looking for and go after it. Don’t settle just for a warm body, especially nowadays, because it’s hard to find good people. It is. 

[00:35:41] Charlie: The old saying, as long as they’ll fog a mirror, we’ll put them in the kitchen. It’s a different world right now, particularly in the back of the house. Our servers make some really good bank. And so that helps with a positive attitude when you know you’re going to make really good money that day and when you’re getting your butt kicked for hours at a time. In this past week, Father’s Day was just a madhouse man, but it was fun.

[00:36:06] I love it when it gets like that. Now, I hate to come in at 4 o’clock and walk into it. I’d rather work all day and night than show up at four o’clock in the middle of it when it’s just busy busy. But the kitchen staff, number one, you got to pay well. And I’d pay well. If you ask anybody that’s working for me in the kitchen, they’re like, Charlie takes care of us. 

[00:36:26] And I think people, even more than money– this is proven– want to be recognized for their performance. They want their input to be valued, and they want to feel ownership with you. And while I do pay well, statistically, that is not the number one motivator for people. You can’t throw an extra $5 an hour at somebody and expect their performance to get better.

[00:36:54] But what you can do is try and figure out how to bring out the best in everybody, and you can’t browbeat. You know the beatings will continue until the morale improves? That’s ’70s, ’80s stuff. It doesn’t work. Fear and intimidation is no way to run a business anymore. You’ve got to be involved with people.

[00:37:11] You’ve got to take care of people. Hey, how’s your wife? You told me that she had to go to a doctor’s visit. She had some concerns. Is everything okay? Hey, I noticed that you’ve been getting dropped off at work five times this week. What’s up with your car? 

[00:37:26] Do I need to spot you 300 bucks? And we’ll do it, or whatever. And I’m not advocating everybody just goes out and loans their people money, but you’ve got to take care of the people that are taking care of you. And when you invest in people like that, it pays itself back just in life.

[00:37:44] Tell the girl at the grocery store that she looks nice with her new hairdo that she noticed she got. What’s it going to hurt? Nothing. You’re going to make somebody’s day. Make it your job to make somebody feel good every day every time that you go out.

[00:37:58] Mike: Yeah, I think that’s huge. You’re talking about the employees want acknowledgement. And I think with a troubled guest, sometimes that’s all they want, is to be acknowledged and for you to understand that they had a bad experience. They might not want anything from it.

[00:38:15] And I’m that way. Sometimes if I go somewhere and I have a bad experience, when I was in my 20s, man, I was horrible. I was a horrible guest at a restaurant. I was the guy that ate it all and then complained about it. Now I don’t say anything. Or if I feel like they left me feeling a bad way, I might tell the manager, hey, this happened. I don’t need anything, but I want you to be aware of it. And that doesn’t happen very often, 

[00:38:52] but back to the new restaurant. What are you going to do?

[00:38:57] Charlie: Again, there’s got to be a 100 different things that are going to separate us. First off, it’s going to be really cool. You’re doing the build out on it. I got faith in you. For everybody that doesn’t know, it’s going to be in a shipping container model with a beer garden courtyard in the middle.

[00:39:14] And then there’s going to be another open container on the other side. It’s going to bring something to that area in Chattanooga. There’s nothing like it anywhere. So that’s gives us a big jump forward right out of the gate. My restaurant that I have now does have a good reputation.

[00:39:29] You’re active in the community where it’s going to be. You know a lot of people. I know a lot of people. And we’re going to have pizza. And you and I talked about this the other day, several times. Pizza is like chicken salad. Everybody’s got their own favorite kind. So we can’t be everything to everybody, but what we’re going to do is have a really good pie and some really good service.

[00:39:49] And I think once we get people in the door and do the little things like looking them in the eye, and shaking their hand, and thanking them for their business, or calling back two hours after they came and picked up their order and say, hey, I just wanted to make sure that you enjoyed your pizza tonight, we hope that it met your expectations, exceeded your expectations, that your family enjoyed it, whatever, doing those little things beyond what most other people are doing.

[00:40:17] Mike: Yeah. Reflecting that to short-term rental hosts, it’s the follow up with the guest. Hey, we hope you enjoyed your stay. Hey, is there anything we can do for you while you’re in Chattanooga? What brings you to Chattanooga? Is there anything we can do to accommodate your stay? All those little things. 

[00:40:35] And when we’re building these short-term rentals, and I never thought about the 95-5 rule until I heard it in the book, but 95% percent of the build is just to the T, on line, on budget. And then there’s those 5% of things. We’re just going to do stupid stuff. Stupid spins. It’s not stupid, but we’re buying hot tubs. We’re buying pizza ovens or a sauna.

[00:41:01] Charlie: I saw the pizza oven thing, and I thought that was really cool. I don’t know if it was something that you shared or you were tagged in it on Facebook, but it was one of your guests, and they were out there cooking pizza. I was like, Mike’s got pizza oven at his place. That’s pretty cool. 

[00:41:15] Mike: 300 bucks. I think they were 179 when we bought them, but now they’ve gotten popular. I saw that on Black Friday. I was like, man, we need one of those at each unit. How cool is that? So we throw that in. 

[00:41:28] Charlie: Putting ready crust in the refrigerator–

[00:41:31] Mike: Yeah. So we have that as an add on. They can add on a pizza kit. They can add on wine, they can add on beer, the chocolates, the anniversary package, any of those packages that will help them with their stay and make that a more memorable experience. And that’s the experience that we want to give our guests. 

[00:41:48] We have guests that come and get engaged. We’ve had elopements, all kinds of different ceremonies, announcements. Whatever you want to have, we’ve probably had it at those properties. And that’s because of the experience that was created for the guest.

[00:42:03] Charlie: In the book that you got me onto, which I loved, and then Setting the Table is the other owner of that restaurant, and it’s a great book too. You got to check it out. One of the things that they were doing when people were making reservations is they’d find out those things. Is it a special event? What brings you to the making your reservation with us today?

[00:42:18] Because now this place was– I don’t know– I think about 180 bucks to eat there, and it’s about a three- or four-hour experience that this guy was running. And it became the number-one-rated restaurant in the world. But if it was an anniversary, they had, remember, the dream weavers, which were people hired specifically to think outside the box and make the customers visit something that would just blow their minds.

[00:42:48] There was a guy. I think he was around a five, 600 pound-man, and they knew that the chair was probably not comfortable for him, but he ate there twice a week. And so they contacted his wife behind his back, had her send them a picture of his favorite chair at home, and went and had it built, had a reproduction of this chair that they would pull out when he came in.

[00:43:13] Tell me that’s not just going the extra mile for service. Or you go out to a fancy restaurant with your wife. You walk up. There’s a desk where they’ve got their monitor or their log book for your reservation. Yeah, it’s Hicks. Party of two for 7:30. Oh, okay. Mr. Hicks right this way.

[00:43:30] But these people went farther. This would be really incredibly difficult to do, but they pulled it off. I don’t even know how. But they were social media stalking their guests. And so when you walked in, they knew what you looked like, hello, Mr. Hicks. We’ve been expecting you. How cool is that?

[00:43:46] Mike: And I’ve heard of short-term rental owners– again, difficult to do. For us, it’s not worth going to do, but I’ve heard of short-term rental owners doing the same thing, stalking on social media, down to the type of music, and then that music is playing when they come into the unit. It’s just creating that extra feel, and going the extra mile and creating that extra special piece that makes it something they won’t forget.

[00:44:17] Charlie: Oh, yeah. Whenever my wife and I travel, especially just local, we’re in Chattanooga, but we’ll go to we’ll go to Nashville once in a while for a weekend, or go to Atlanta, or somewhere. We don’t do hotels anymore. We’re straight up Airbnb people. We’ll go find something, a deal close to where we’re going to be.

[00:44:33] If we’re going to go out and have cocktails, we Uber from the Airbnb. But only one time has anybody called about two hours after checking. And I imagine everybody knows now because they’ve got the keyless door pads, and you can tell when your guests are coming in or going out, or you’ve got the blank, or the ring, or whatever on your front porch. But they called and said, hey, this is so and so, the property, blah, blah, blah.

[00:44:56] We just wanted to make sure everything met your expectation and that you’re all set and good to go. And I was like, huh. Now, we do this a lot. That’s the first and only time that that’s ever happened. And I was impressed by it, and I will remember them. It’s a guy that when you clicked on his other properties on the link, he’s got a property in New York. He’s got properties here and there. 

[00:45:16] And I’ve bookmarked it, saved it, whatever. And I’ll definitely stay with him if I’m somewhere else just because of that one thing that’s never happened for me personally. And maybe some people might think it’s intrusive. They don’t want to be bothered. They’re on vacation. But from a customer service perspective, I thought, man, this guy’s got it going on. Knows how to take care of his guests. 

[00:45:34] Mike: What’s the one thing that you can do that will make you stand out? And like you said earlier, you’re looking for a 100 little things that will make you stand out. So, man, Charlie, I appreciate you coming on. This has been a blast. I know that the listeners will get a ton of information from this and easily relatable to short-term rentals and customer service goes across all boards. How do we find you?

[00:46:01] Charlie: I am on Suck Creek Road. Yes, just like it sounds. S-U-C-K. It’s 1925 Suck Creek Road in Chattanooga, just at the foot of Signal Mountain along the Tennessee River. The place is called River Drifters. It’s riverdrifterschatt, C-H-A-T-T.com.

[00:46:19] Mike: You’re on Instagram as well.

[00:46:21] Charlie: Instagram and Facebook both. Yeah.

[00:46:23] Mike: All right. All right. So if you’ve got any questions for Charlie, if you want to reach out and hit him up, come and have the best burger in Chattanooga, come on down and see him.

[00:46:33] Charlie: Absolutely, man. Sounds good. Mike, thanks for having me, buddy. I appreciate it. 

[00:46:36] Mike: All right, guys, we’ll see you next time.