Restaurant Success Secrets from Mike Bausch of Andolini's Pizza

Because it's not failure till you give up. So you say I'm done. Yeah. Till you go home till you sell your, till whatever. It's not failure. It's all right. I learned from that. So you take the hit, you move forward. Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef. This is a Cali BBQ Media production. We're coming to you from the International Pizza Expo. When we started this show, my goal was to find

the greatest storytellers in restaurants and to bring them on the show. I have the legend. This guy literally cannot walk down the hallways without getting stopped. Mike Bosch, Andolini's Pizza. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to see you again. Thank you for having me. Great to see you. This is dope. First day of Pizza Expo, which I would argue is more special than the average show. Burger Con, not nearly as stoked as the people of

Pizza Expo. It's a very dedicated, All in community. How long have you been coming to Pizza Expo? This is my 20th year. 20th year. Yeah. 22 years of business. I was 23, scared as all hell when I first came here. It was a deluge of information. And now I'm happy I could give people the proper information to take back to their stores. Do you remember what inspired you to get out of your pizza restaurant to come

to the Pizza Expo? It's hard. It's hard. I didn't even know it existed. So then when I heard, I was like, oh, word, that's a thing? I should go to that. And I remember staying on the floor of a friend's condo far away. That's about how much I could afford. And took the monorail. Just every poor kid thing you could do to be able to come to the first expo I was at. Can you give us

high level? How many restaurants do you have? How many employees you're working with? So currently today, Andalini's Pizzeria is now Andalini's worldwide. It is 12 different things. five pizzerias, two food hall locations, two food trucks, one's a trailer, one's a full truck. Additionally, a fine dining restaurant, Proximo Ristorante, named best new restaurant in Tulsa. My pizza restaurants, top 10 pizzeria in America by TripAdvisor, along with our catering company, our location at the Tulsa International Airport. And

two new locations this year, one will be a French restaurant and one is a NDA location in a very cool spot. I'm very much- We're not breaking any news here? I would love to, but I know this is going to go out to the masses. Trying to ask the tough questions. You speak at this show. What is the thing that makes people nod their heads and they go, oh shit, I got to line up and ask

Mike about afterwards? Well, people are always asking, people are so obsessed with the tech stack. And that's righteous. I think it matters, but it's not going to save you. It's certainly- You got to make good pizza? You got to make a great product. You got to lean in on people. You got to have ingenuity abound. Ingenuity abound and have a radical self-reliance approach. If you're like, well, I don't know how to do that. This is not

your business. Like, figure it out. But if you're like, what's the best way to do that? That's where the show comes in. Because a lot of people are like, oh, I have GPT. What's a smart way to use it? Yes. And all things, again, whether or not you're on toast or whatever POS, knowing that you should have one, great. Best way to use it. You'll find some people at these shows that will help with that. When

did you learn about growing a personal brand? You know, I didn't at first want to. And then I was like, oh crap. I can't afford someone to, I couldn't buy someone. And then when I was like, well, I'm not the best looking, I'm not the best on camera. All the voices of a seventh grader in your head. Let's say I'm going to be, I thought of my patron saint of restauranting. Dave Thomas. Yes. I was like,

Dave's the first influencer. Dave Thomas is like, hi, I'm Dave Thomas and I hope you'll enjoy Wendy's with our never frozen patties. Monotone as all hell. Yes. Morbidly obese. And he still was the best thing to ever have in that brand. I would argue with all the tweets that Wendy's kills it on tweets. Crashes it. But their market share is down because they're not speaking to their product and their base and the vision of a face

in charge. And all the owners, you have that. You're not like the Verizon guy who's gonna say, you know, one week with Verizon and then switch it and go to Sprint. That's not your problem because you don't have a board of directors. You get to be the brand. And if you're afraid of that, get out of your own way. Because everyone wants you to win. You just gotta let them. The first time I had you on

our digital hospitality show, We had a great conversation. I remember talking about Mamba mentality and being obsessed with constant iteration of improvement. Yes. One of the things that separates the successful brands here, anywhere else in the world, the people that watch this show is that they're unwilling to quit. Yeah. Always willing to get knocked down, but get back up, especially in the restaurant business. You have to because it's not failure till you give up. So you

say I'm done. Yeah. Till you go home, till you sell your to whatever. It's not failure. It's all right. I learned from that. So you take the hit, you move forward. And the notion that you're not going to fall down, it's insane. Like, you're going to be like, oh, I want to be Tony Hawk and do a 900 in the air, but I don't want to fall off the skateboard. Yeah. You're going to fall off the

skateboard. That's part of the game. And that's okay. As long as you always say, okay, great. I got punched in the face. Now I know how that feels. Now I can do something with it. Did you know that Toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada, and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the Toast customer advisory board. They are proud sponsors of this show, Restaurant Influencers. We couldn't do it without their support. They

power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego. If you have questions about Toast, if you're thinking about bringing Toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants, please reach out to me. I'm happy to get a local Toast representative to take care of you. You can reach me at Sean P. Welcheff on Instagram. Once again, thank you to Toast for believing in the power of technology, the power of storytelling, the power of hospitality. Back to

the show. Tell me about your educational platform. I know you started doing a lot more content on YouTube, which we appreciate. We're gonna put links, because you're crushing it on YouTube. I love the content that you put in. It's the number one TV channel in the world, globally. I mean, come on. It's the OG of social media, the fact that like, I'm waking up, I'm hiring people on my team to go more all in on YouTube.

Can you share more about YouTube? So, for us, YouTube is, YouTube, the beautiful thing about YouTube video is it's dedicated, I am taking this in content. It's the most premium of content as opposed to toilet content. Like, oh, I can just watch this while I'm the crapper. Like, it's like, no, no, I'm gonna answer this question. So if you could kill it there, you could pretty much kill it anywhere. Now, Instagram and TikTok and shorts are

lesser forms that could lead into the bigger. And then in the restaurant game, it's all about the, how do I use this as a funnel to the restaurant? For what I do with Unsliced, so I wrote a book called Unsliced. With everything I was doing, people hitting me up at Pizza Expo, and it's called Unsliced, it has nothing to do with pizza. It's all business, restaurant ops, and even restaurant thing is probably 20% of it. It's

about business and how to be the best owner possible, and how to streamline your systems and streamline your ops. So many people wanted me to fly out to their restaurant and help them out that I created a holistic program for any owner to maximize their restaurant, any independent owner from zero to 10 units called the Unsliced Restaurant System, where I walk them through every week, their vision, their ops, their financials, their marketing, their team acquisition, team

retention, vendor negotiation, and then last but not least, how to systemize it so you can actually have a life with all this. And I have like 32 AI tools, I have no shortage of things to make it, but it's not about the tools, it's about enhancing the owner. I do not fix restaurants. I make owners enhanced to the point that they can own the restaurant on their terms and get the revenue they deserve. So one thing

I have to talk to you about, both of us are on the Toast Customer Advisory Board. I wouldn't have this show if Toast didn't believe in storytelling, believe in technology. Can you talk about how you choose your tech partners? I have to have them as a partner. Yes. A partner, not a pariah. Like ones that let you take over their booth. They paid a lot of money to be at this. Ovation is a partner. Now, what

is a partner? A partner is like, hey, I want you to win because when you win, we win. Yeah. That's a partner. If someone's ever doing something where it's like, well, they're going to close in three years, so get as much money as we can from them. That's a pariah. Yes. I want to only deal with partners. Sometimes you have a partner that you don't know if they're a partner or not. And you got to readjust

them and make them feel like partners and give before you take. But I do not live in the world of non-partnerships, whether it's Toast, Ovation, DoorDash. I got to make them a partner, give them some wins, some W's. And then I'm like, when it comes to negotiation time, it's not even a negotiation. It's like, well, this is in both of our best interests. I believe Toast, look at how Toast conducted themselves during pandemic. They, acted like

a partner and they were like, hey, we're gonna make sure you guys are, we need you to be open. And that's why I still rock with them today. They're always iterating on the platform and there's gonna be people like, oh, I can't stand this and this and this. That's what happens when you're at the top of the hill. Toast, you can't argue it's best in class. It's just inarguable for the robust features they have and also

the AI and the holistic setup. That's what I dig and that's why I still am with them. If somebody's watching this, listening to this, what do they need to know about Oklahoma? Well, it's not what you think. It's not like we're still dealing with cowboy hats. Like Tulsa King is not filled with Tulsa. There is Jeff Smokovic. The lowdown, the lowdown is pretty good. We have a Whole Foods like Tulsa. You got a Whole Foods? There

you go. Tulsa is essentially Austin with less douchebags. Okay. And less traffic. That's Tulsa. Oklahoma? There's cuts of Oklahoma I don't really want to go visit. Tulsa in and of itself is all killer, no filler. The number one pizza-reviewed city in America is New York on Google. Number one best pizza-reviewed city in America is New York. Number two is Tulsa. Wow. And we're the best-reviewed pizza city or pizzeria in Tulsa. So great pizza, great concerts, great

people. I love it. I grew up in New York, New Jersey, and San Francisco. I love all those places, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in America than Tulsa. How do you get more reviews? Well, you could talk to your boys at Ovation. You want more reviews, more customers, customers that are excited about it. You say, hey, here's the way to get there. I'm the best review because of Ovation. And then if they don't

love you, this is why this is the greatest. No BS. Look, this is my like this. I said, I want no money for this. If you're listening to the podcast, please go to YouTube and follow Follow it on YouTube, because it's so much better in person. I have two mics. I'm surrounded by mics. Three mics. I want no money from you for this. I want no money. Use my face because I love your product so much.

That's how good ovation is. That's how it is. For the restaurant owner that's out there, that's listening to this, talk to them about not putting out, so we say be the show, not the commercial. No one goes to social media to watch a commercial about your restaurant, but they want a story. and they want to be entertained. How can you teach them how to do more storytelling? Start with the did you knows. What is your did

you knows? Come up with a list. In fact, let's make this stupid easy. Go to your phone, pull it out, go to your voice recorder. and just talk your happy ass off about all the did you know. It's like, well, we started this here. We cold ferment our dough. We do this. We buy this organically. We go to this, blah, blah, blah. And we also do this. And then take the transcript, put it through Claude, and

say, come up with as many did you know social media concept ideas from this list. And then make those in email, in email, in story posts, in social media posts, and then just tell that story. Because experiential dining is the path. Discounting is not. Experiential dining, like, oh my god, they do this, they do this, it's so cool, they do this and this and this. The discount path is not the win. If you need to give

a freebie to get someone's email, give it completely free. Be a crack dealer. Give them a hit, gotcha, bitch. That's it. You don't want to live in a world of 20% off or else you will be Bed Bath & Beyond giving the big-ass blue coupon on your slow path to death. It's like, well, I'm not going to Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't have a 20% off coupon. Yes. That's not where we win. We win in

experience. Oh, my God, I got to go there. You got to come in there because if it's not impressive by default, it's unimpressive. It sucks. It's mid and I don't want to go back. What equipment impresses you at this show? Oh, my God, so much. Well, equipment, whether it's Rotoflex, is from an oven perspective, I love Rotoflex. From a pizza box perspective, if you have the established brand, pizza bib, full color. Other equipment, I want to

make things as like, I'm all for a shredder that can cut things super fast, like a vertical chopping mixer. But then in the tech side of things, Ovation takes the cake, toast, I don't usually like to have too many apps that integrate unless I really, really know they work. Because if it screws up revenue, you're paying money to lose money. Ovation always makes money. Toast, solid app. DoorDash integrates very well. I like DoorDash. But again, you

always have to gain the relationship and be the best partner possible. Trying to dance with 40 partners and barely know any of them, you're going to be the one taking advantage of. And if you ever want to really have a preeminent source and to know that you're going somewhere forward. We're on CAB for toast because I would rather have a seat at the table than be on the menu. 100% because customer advisory board, reach out to

your partners because the best tech companies, the best partners in the restaurant space, they build with you. They don't build for you and say, hey, here's a product that I built. What do you think? No, they go, what are you working on and how can we build something great together? Exactly. If you guys are watching this, if you're listening to this, you can reach out to me. I'm weirdly available. Sean P. Walchef on Instagram or on

LinkedIn. Before I let you go Mike, I need to know about your personal tech stack, iPhone or Android? iPhone, of course. What version? The newest. The newest always? Always. Okay. How many photos and videos do you have on your phone? Of business? I mean, every single week I'm recording 20 videos. They're all on my phone. I'm using teleprompter. Okay. I'm making scripts. I'm giving myself the, I don't like read it verbatim, but I go teleprompter, and

then I load it into Drive, where someone then edits it down, and then I post it on either Pali, and I'm looking at Sochi now, I'm liking that, and that's my workflow there. On videos, I have a full, whole different approach for YouTube, because it's so methodical, and that works great for us. Another techie thing, like, I love Claude with Raystack. Raystack is an automation, so now I can highlight a whole email, hit Command E, and

it comes up with my response that I can just put it in there, evaluate it before I post. You're gonna get me, but I can help it along because I put so much hours, so many hours into Claude that it knows what I would want to say anyway. So Claude over ChatGPT? For writing, yes. For writing, yes. Of course Claude on that. Phone calls or text messages? If it's quick answer and I know them, text. If

it needs any level of nuance, voice memo. Voice memo. Voice memo for any level of nuance. That way we can speak asynchronously while still getting the move. Okay. Yeah. Do you leave voicemails? If they are older people, yes. For my dad, I'll leave a voicemail. How many emails do you get a day? I get over a thousand emails a day, probably 250 I need to act upon. How many of the 250 do you enjoy reading? 30?

30, that 30 is pretty good. What's your notification management? Are you inbox zero? Do you have, if we looked at your phone right now, I mean, obviously PizzaX was a different, but like on a normal day, do you have a shit ton? I have clean email. I have a VA that if I really need to, I can say, take care of this and this and this, or I'll go in personally. I go to inbox zero every

day. And. How long have you had a VA? A year and a half. What are your tips for multi-unit restaurant owners for virtual assistants? Very good question. So if you're multi-unit, you should get, first off, to find the VA, hire someone on Fiverr that says they're a VA, have them do three small tasks. If they do those well, say, hey baby, let's go on Fiverr. And then, then you need a sauna, A-S-A-N-A, and then you're gonna

do your tasks that you want them to do. Do it all on a loom, L-O-O-M. Take the transcript of that loom, of you and describing everything, put that in GPT, say, give me an SOP of this task, then assign that to the VA at the cadence you want them to do it, whether it's weekly, on every Tuesday, do this on this, and boom, and then you're just having them do it on your behalf, and you're checking

in on the task being done. That's all I'm able to have 12 going on 14 restaurants. That is amazing. Teams, Google Meets or Zoom? Zoom, Zoom One. Get out of my space with that Google garbage. Team needs to- Why are you paying Zoom? Google's free. Because it's Zoom. Because it's Zoom. We just all as a society agree that it's Zoom. Kleenex won. Is it Apple Maps or Google Maps? I'm actually, I rock with my boy Steve

Jobs in death and priant. I'm going to go Apple Maps. Apple Maps. Okay. I trust in Apple. So no Gemini. No, Gemini's not my guy. I got Claudio and Stevie Jobs. How do you listen to music? What platform? I'm on Apple. I'm on Apple. I'm on Apple. And if my son has something, it's because the audio is better on Apple on AirPods. Okay. You cannot, if I want to hear a song, I'm going to hear it

better. Well, is Spotify a better platform? Yes. Can I find more random songs? Yes. If I want to love music because I'm an audiophile, I'm listening to it specifically on Apple. Is there an app that you use that you don't think people know about that they need to know about? That's a great question. Let's go right there. Let's go check. Let's see. TikTok, is that new? Asana. What's your favorite social app that you enjoy? Oh, TikTok.

Oh, I'm on TikTok. You're on TikTok. TikTok all night. TikTok knows you too well? Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think also on the Asana thing, get a LastPass account and then have your VA have access to all your passwords without having access to any of them. I think they're like, how would I give them my passwords? Do that. And then even on site, here's my best example. Don't go to Sam's Club. I love going to Sam's

Club, but it's a waste of two hours of my day. I could go and do a surprise and delight at a school, film that and get more because my job as an owner is to create revenue. It's not to be the junk drawer of my business. Thank God, yes. And if you are the junk drawer, well, I'll do it. No one else will. You're failing. So don't be the junk drawer. Delegate a task. I get more

revenue. It's a negotiation, it's training, it's loving the time spent with your people. And if you find yourself being the junk drawer, you gotta pause and say no. And when you do that, you'll make more money and you'll have a better life. I love that you talked about VA. I just hired one. I used a firm called Athena, phenomenal firm. You can reach out to me, talk to them. I love Mike's advice, but I am very

bullish on restaurant owners. Stop doing so much bullshit. You do too much bullshit. And as you become multi-unit, There are virtual assistants out there that are highly qualified to take low leverage tasks off of our plate. Exactly. What is the best platform for people to keep in touch with you? If you want to talk to me direct, go to Instagram at Mikey Bausch and check out Get Unsliced, watch a video of mine. And if that's where

you're an independent owner, I have never had someone do my program and ask for a refund. I don't suck and I don't half-ass anything. Full ass all day. You heard it. You heard it in the details. You heard it in the passion. That's why this guy can't walk down the halls. Grateful for the time. As always, stay curious, get involved, get to the Pizza Expo, get out of your restaurant, and don't be afraid to ask for

help. We'll catch you guys next episode. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you've made it this long, you are part of the community. You're part of the tribe. We can't do this alone. We started. No one was listening. Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe. Please check out our new series called Restaurant Technology Substack. It's a Substack newsletter. It's free. It's some of our deep work on the

best technology for restaurants. Also go to YouTube and subscribe to Kali BBQ Media. Kali BBQ Media on YouTube. We've been putting out a lot of new original content. Hopefully you guys like that content. If you want to work with us, go to BeTheShow.media. We show up all over the United States, some international countries. We would love to work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling. You can reach out to me anytime at Sean P.

Welchef on Instagram. I'm weirdly available available. Stay curious, get involved. Don't be afraid to ask for help. We'll catch you next episode.