Building Brands Cali Style with Nick Kiouftis

Hey, welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. I am very honored to be joined today by Nico Kuftes from the California Grill out in Los Angeles area. What city are you actually in, Nico? What are.

What are your California. So 15, 20 minutes away from downtown LA.

Yeah. And just full disclosure, you know, Nico is a member of my restaurant accelerator program, my coaching program. He's like a lot of entrepreneurs and restaurateurs that understand that if you want to get better, you want to have a coach, you want to take yourself to the next level. And Nico's been doing such a great job. I've been very, very impressed by the progress he's made. In fact, I'm so impressed, I decided to invite him down to Scottsdale to be a speaker at my annual event called the Restaurant Success Summit here in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's gonna be October 24th, 25th, 26th. Three days, 18 workshops, eight speakers. Nico's gonna be one of them. And he's. He's got some really, really cool stuff going on that I wanted him to share with you. Now, today, we're not going to go into it a lot. We're going to kind of give you a teaser because we definitely want you to come out to the Restaurant Success Summit. But first off, Nico, why don't you tell the. Why don't you tell listeners a little bit about your background? Because you actually, you have some background I didn't know about you. There's some really cool stuff I didn't know about you.

Yeah, man. You know, so I'm Greek, you know, so Greeks, restaurants, fast food, they go hand in hand. That's the first thing that we learned, you know, when we get over here. So, you know, at a very young age, you know, I started the business, you know, right before I could see over the counter. I did that child labor kind of deal, you know, so it's all good. You know, I got to learn a lot. I was mentored by real estate guys and, you know, and also I went to the Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, you know, so I was one of the youngest sous chefs for the Marriott Hotel in Disneyland, or Marriott Hotel in Anaheim next to Disneyland. So, yeah, no, I had a lot of great experience. Worked for bars, nightclubs, you know, other Greek restaurant owners and, you know, ran my own places too, you know, so California Grill, you know, we just took it to the next level, you know, and this is one of my favorite brands. We've had, you know, other brands as well. We've had California Grill, Express Boards Grill, and a chain of Bob's Burger restaurants. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's. It's in my blood. Restaurants and real estate. That's it.

That's it. That's it. Yeah. And so, like, since you've kind of taken over the helm of, you know, California Grill, what are some, like, new things that you've implemented that you've helped really kind of take that revenue to that next level? What are a couple of things.

Yeah. So, you know, we. We have 21 virtual ghost kitchens that we run out of this one in one location.

That's crazy. 21 virtual ghost kitchens.

21 virtual ghost kitchens. And, you know, we, we just manage and diversify and cross utilize our menus and really take advantage of it. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's, that's definitely a key factor of, you know, what helps out with the labor and, you know, the, the inflation, all that other stuff that we've been going through. But, you know, we've been doing it for the last three years now. You know, right before COVID we had started, you know, soft rolling it, and as Covid hit, you know, we kind of did a, you know, Monopoly takeover, let's just say. And, you know, at the same token, I also launched off my meal kit company as well. So, you know, we're getting into the retail business and, you know, we ship nationwide now, so, you know, pretty exciting. Yeah, yeah. No, we've had a lot of great opportunities, man, and we really took advantage of it. So it's super exciting. Thank you.

And what do you think, like, of all these, like, new revenue streams that you have going for California Grill, what are you most excited about expanding on? You think it's the meal kits? Do you think it's what, what do you think is the area that you really want to focus on, especially in the New Year 2023? What do you think you want to kind of double down on?

Yeah, so actually really excited. We just got our full liquor license about a month ago, so that's been the primary focus. And, you know, if you don't got liquor, man, you definitely need it. It. It helps out, that's for sure. I mean, you know, our bills went from, you know, I think it was like $32. Now they're jumping up to $48 average, you know what I mean? So it's, it's, it's, it's. It's a nice bump. You know, it's like, you're getting, you know, everybody that's coming in and you know, the couple that was spending $40 for lunch, now they're spending $90, you know, when you drop in, two drinks there, you know. So I think it's a really exciting time for us, especially with, you know, you know, celebrity mixologists that we brought on and you know, we're doing some really nice collaborations and bringing on, you know, great opportunities with, you know, know, whiskey dinners, tequila dinners and you know, that's kind of the primary focus right now is, is really pushing that alcohol envelope. And you know, we got a bunch of other things too that, that are coming up. So, you know, I don't want to spoil all the fun but you know, a lot of exciting things, you know.

Well, so I, you know, just so everyone knows too. I was out at your place last month when I was at the Western food show speaking. I stopped by your restaurant real quick and you gave me a tour. Place is amazing by the way. Looks fantastic. I mean just the service those, if you ever go, if you're out in his market, stop by a California grill and look. Wait till you see the sizzling fajitas. I mean they are like no joke. They're like a game on, full on. I thought it was like a four alarm fire. It was smoking so much, like crazy. I've never seen fajitas like that, like on fire, like flaming up like that and smoking like that. It was great.

We're a smoke show man, you know, we like, we like to bring the heat, baby.

And you just recently gotten your liquor license. You had to jump back there and bartender a little bit. Little bit too when I was there.

Hey, you know, I, I, I've, I'm a veteran in that field too, you know, so I've had a lot of bar back experience. So you know, I know I, I know a few things or two, but you know, I'm always polishing up my game, you know, so I hire, you know, people that are way more intelligent in that field and I learned from them, you know. So, you know, we bounce off of each other and you know, that's, that's the, that's the experience, man. It's a, you know, all constantly leveling up, you know.

So when people think about Ghost Kitchen and stuff like that, a lot of times I think they're a little hesitant. What would you say if their people are hesitant about doing a ghost and just like say do it and do it.

I mean, it's just like everything else, man. If you're Gonna sit there and you're gonna try to perfect it. You're never gonna launch. You know what I mean? So it's like, you gotta launch, and you learn from the experience. So, you know, if you're thinking about it or I've been on the fence for, you know, doing it, I would say jump and go. You know, it's like, what else are you gonna do? It's like, if you're. If you're. If you're. I. I can't. I don't have the right terminology for it, but if, you know, dude, you're jumping out of a damn plane, man. You know, a bear rescue.

You gotta hit the ground, man.

You gotta hit the ground, baby.

You know, baby, you gotta jump. Gotta pull. Gotta pull that damn shoe you got.

You gotta pull it. You gotta pull the cord, man. So if you don't pull the cord, you ain't flying, dude.

So now a lot of people might say, oh, my God. 21 ghost kitchen concepts. That's a lot. What's your favorite concepts out of the Ghost Kitchens? Which one do you have that you think is like, your favorite ones?

I mean, we have some cool ones, you know, we. We have some personal ones that we run, and we also have some fun ones that we. That we. And collaborate with some YouTube celebrities, you know, so, you know, those are out there. You know what I mean? So those are. Those are really cool. And, you know, it's exciting to see, like, these little kids that come in that, you know, follow these YouTubers, and they're like, dude, I want, you know, a Mr. Beast burger. Oh, yeah, we do Mr. Beast, you know, so that's pretty cool. It's nuts, dude. I mean, you know, the power of YouTube and the power of some of these collaborations that we have with some people, it's. It's pretty crazy. I mean, they come down here and they're like, where is your this or that? Or, you know, and they're like, where's a sticker? Can I get a sticker? Or, you know, whatever the case is, you know, so it's fun. It's fun. I mean, you know, there's a lot of opportunity. And, you know, not only that, it opens up to more, I mean, you know, customers, like, I didn't know you did this, and I didn't know you did that, and, you know, and, yeah, I mean, we get them to experience different sides of the menu, you know, so, you know, we got a pretty big menu, man. We have a. You know, we have pastas, we have burgers. We have salads, we have omelets, we have burritos. We have baby back ribs. We have all types of seafood. We have fajitas, you know, so we got. We got. We got a nice, diverse California cuisine menu, you know, so it's. It's pretty cool, you know, that's cool.

And then, you know, I know a lot of people are struggling with staffing and stuff like that. What do you think is your number one reason that you don't have to seem to have the problems with staffing?

I mean, you know, everybody wants to work for us, man. I mean, we do a pretty good job, you know. You know, we have a lot of technology behind us, and, you know, we're very responsive. We've automated a lot of the processes, and, you know, we have a badass tech stack. I mean, people see the restaurant, they want to come and work for it, you know, they want to see all the excitement. They see the ig. They see, you know, the video, the collaborations that we do, and, you know, it's a fun working environment, man. You know? So, yeah, you're.

You're pretty aggressive on social media, too, and you do a lot of collaborations. How did a lot of that stuff come about? Did you, like, did you reach out to them first? They reached out to you. I mean, did you have to get aggressive?

It's, it's, it's. It's. They hit me up, I hit them up. I mean, that's. That's. You just got to be aggressive, man. I mean, you know, I. I contact people, people that I wouldn't think would do it. Do it. They go, yeah, we've been watching you. You know what I mean? And they're like, yeah, you know, since, you know, you got to be active. You got to be proactive. You got to be, you know, you got to be hitting them socials, you got to be hitting them dms, you know, you got to be hollering, and, you know, people holler back, you know, that's for sure.

So social media is like, again, a huge part of your brand, and I. I highly recommend. What's. What's your Instagram for?

Oh, California Grill.

That's it. OG that's it.

OG baby. Original.

OG Original Gangsta California Grill. And then, yeah, I mean, you guys are pretty. Really pretty aggressive on social media. Do you think a lot of restaurants don't take advantage of social media nowadays?

I mean, they're not consistent with it, you know what I mean? And that's the key, you know, you got to be consistent with it, you got to hit them with the stories, you got to hit them with the lives. I think it's a very big key component. You know, we have nothing to hide. We show behind the scenes. We show, you know, how we, how we make some food, you know, we, we shoot, we showcase our employees, you know, we showcase our customers. You know, we show them having a good time, you know, so I think it's very necessary, you know, and you know, you got to do an Omni channel, you know, you got to hit them from the YouTube, you got to do the Tick tocks, you got to do the, you know, the ig, the Facebook, you know, because each one to their own, you know what I mean? So, you know, there's, there's, there's, if you're not hitting every single thing, text messaging, email, you know, next door, you know what I mean? Like, there's so many different types of platforms that are people on and you know, they're creatures of habit. You know, you're gonna get, you know, people that, you know are only on ig, you're gonna get people that are only on Tick Tock. You're gonna get people that are only on YouTube, you know, so you got to be making sure you hit every angle, you know, not just being, you know, one, one dimensional. You definitely got to be 3D as.

Far as like tech stack. What's some of your favorite tech you like?

There's so many, you know, there's so many. I, I've been really geeking out on a lot of AI and you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of our new tech that's coming out. You know, we're doing a lot of beta testing for Toast. You know, we're doing a lot of, you know, new things that we're working on like from our California Grow University and you know, our development, you know, franchising and you know, there's a lot of cool things that we're working on. So I would say social media number one and automation number two. And number three is, you know, having the right point of sale, you know, would be the key elements. You know, you have to have a very good CRM in order for you to be constantly in front of your customers, you know.

And you guys have a, you have a mailing list, right?

Oh, yeah.

How often do you hit your mailing list, your email list?

I mean, we, we touch on it maybe once a week, you know, at minimum, you know, with, with a text or two per week too, you know what I mean? So you Know, we're constantly hitting it, you know, and DMing and you know, and you know, just, just, you know, touching everywhere, you know, as much as we can, you know.

So data, data is like the new gold. I mean that's, I think that's a new kind of frontier is like you want to capture those names and email addresses. You had a really cool thing there when I was there and I like, I was, I was like. In fact we got a picture of us. You have this mirror. It looks like a mirror, but it's actually a selfie mirror, right?

Yep.

And it's really cool. Yeah, the photo booth, right? Yeah, it's really cool because after you take the picture, it asks you for your email address to get the picture. So it's kind of gotcha. If you want the picture, that's cool. But I gotta get your email address.

Yeah. You know, you must pay before you pump. You know what I mean?

So for like WI fi at your restaurant, do you do free WI fi or do you have to use some kind of, like some kind of WI fi service where they have to give you an email address to get WI fi?

So yeah, we have free WI Fi but you know, we have a splash page and all that kind of good stuff. So, you know, it's another source of lead magnet, you know, so we have multiple lead magnets from our websites to, you know, the mirror to, you know, using some other products with some other speakers that you have that are going to be on board, like exact motion. Yeah, yeah, we're doing the reputation management deal with them and you know. Yeah. I mean as long as you're constantly trying to, you know, intake and play with the day, the data, I mean that's, that's number, number one thing. You know, you gotta make sure you're, you're hitting it. You know, whether it's going to be physical or digital, you know, you got to make sure you hit it very, very cool.

Yeah. And then if, if you had to, if you had to kind of think about if you had to do it over again, would you have focused on more ghost kitchens? Would you have focused on more meal kits? Would you focus on more marketing? What would you, if you had to like start over from scratch, what would you be like? Your like, I would hit this hard.

Man. That's a tough question and a great question too. It's, it's, you know, I'm glad I did it the way I did it, you know what I mean? Because, you know, it was coveted, man. I mean we were, we Were doing whatever the hell we could, you know, I was, I was hitting the freaking IGs. I was going crazy. I was going, I was, I was hard in the paint, bro. Like, we, we were like constantly thinking like, how can I work with this? How can I get, how can I do this? How can I, how can I get to that guy that can't get here because they're locked in their house? You know what I mean? So I figured out how to get to them, you know, and, you know, and the way it was was, you know, launching the virtual kitchens and really finding great success with that. And then, and then the meal kits. I mean, I, I would do it the same all over again, you know. So, you know, I, I would, I would actually 10x, you know what I did? You know what I mean? And automate and do it faster, you know what I mean? So, you know, because I was afraid too, you know, it was like, shit, am I doing too much? Am I not doing enough? Am I? You know, but now I'm like, no, dude, you got to be annoying, you know, and you got to sit there and you got to just continuously hit it, you know, and hit it hard, you know, and people rep, you know, they, they, they appreciate that. They, they like it. You got to be in front of them because you're dealing with multi billion dollar companies that, you know, are doing the same, you know, so what they're doing, you got to make sure you're doing too. They're hitting it physically, they're hitting it. Television, they're hitting the email, they're hitting the freaking, the postcard, they're freaking blowing you up, dude, you know, so you got to do the same damn thing, you know, and 10 exit, you know, that's for sure, you know, and I wish I did it and I, I wish I, I dropped more money on Facebook advertising in Covid. And you know, we would have, we would have definitely had a big ass monopoly, you know.

So speak about Facebook advertising. You're advertising pretty aggressively, right on Facebook.

I've slimmed down a little bit because of what's going on with all the, you know, the AI and all the new, you know, advertising, so on and so forth. I mean, at one point we were doing $10,000 a month in Facebook advertising. You know what I mean? Yeah, we were dropping big money, but you know, we were, we were also making, you know, big money back from the meal kits and all that stuff. But you know, logistics and everything else and pricing going up and so on and so forth. We brought it down on a more local scale because, you know, we just don't have the multi, multi, multi millions that we're dealing billions that we're dealing with with some of these guys, like, freshly and stuff. You know what I mean? So, you know, and we're gonna, we're gonna attack it and approach it a different way. And you know, as we grow with our ghost kitchens and our franchisees and whatnot, that's how we're going to open up to the different markets. So, you know, we, we trialed, narrowed, we figured out all the, you know, all the pain points, we figured out the logistics of it all, and now we're ready to rock and roll, you.

Know, Very cool also too. Yeah. If you are looking for a really badass brand that you want. If you're looking, you want to get into the restaurant business and you want to open up a franchise, I highly recommend getting into the California Grill franchise model. Nico, not only do you get a great franchise concept, but also Nico and I have worked it out where you also get some coaching with me too. So.

Yep.

We're gonna make sure you don't fail, right?

No, you got, you're gonna get hands on and hands on y.

We're gonna make sure you don't fail. That's. That's for sure, man. We're gonna make sure that you are set up for success. So not only do you get a solid, I mean, a ground up, a brand in a box franchise concept that Nico's worked out, and trust me, this is years and years of trial and.

Error, a lot of air, you know, lots of errors.

And now decided that now I'm ready to franchise this thing out. And then he says, like, hey, man, what would it take to get you involved too, to do some coaching to make sure these people don't, you know, have a safety net. And I was like, hey, I'm all in, man.

So, yeah.

Californiagrill.com check it out. If you're looking to expand that brand out. It's a, it's a great, great concept. I mean, the food, I have to say, the franchising is one of the things I tend to shy away from. But I'm telling you right now, Nico and his team have a really, really solid. I mean, I'm kind of like, where wondered where's your videographer? You usually have a videographer following you around every day?

I usually do. I usually do. He had to catch up some stuff, you know, today. So I'm like, hey, do your thing. You know, I got a Podcast to hit with Donald here. And, you know, I got to get on the road here soon too, so, you know, I wanted to chit chat with you real quick, say what's up, and holler at your people, you know.

Very awesome. Awesome. So again, if you want to grab a ticket, Nico's gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. We got six other speakers. I got Bruce Irving. Smart Pizza marking, Carl Osborne from Digging, Delivering, the digital restaurant's gonna be there. Bruce Irving. Every. Dare I say Bruce Irving.

Yep. Ovation.

Zach from Ovation is going to be there. Chef James Avery from the Bonnie Reed in New York. He was actually was a chef on Hell's Kitchen. He ran the blue kitchen for Gordon Ramsay for years. Yeah, he's a really cool, great, down to earth guy. Bo, Brian's a restaurant giant's gonna be here. It's gonna be a great, great show. I got Yugal Adado from San Francisco. Actually, he's from San Diego. He's gonna be in speaking about leadership. He's one of my. A really good friend. Really, really a great expert about leadership, stuff like that. So it's going to be a great, great experience. Would love to have you come down. It's very, very limited. So, you know, it's only 50 seats because we. We're holding it at a private residency. So 50 seats, when you're gone, they're gone, and they always sell out. So I would highly recommend jumping in, grabbing a ticket to the restaurant success summit. You just go over to www.restaurantsuccessumm.com if you want to check out Nico's Place, California Grill.com and we will see you in Scottsdale. I'll see you pretty soon in Scottsdale, my friend.

We'll see you soon, you guys, thank you so much. You guys have a wonderful weekend. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Donald. I'll talk to you soon, my brother.

Thanks, man.