A short YouTube interview where Donald Burns and a restaurant operator discuss implementing the TRC method. The operator reports immediate pushback from staff, significant turnover (most staff replaced at two locations), and that the changes exposed and removed a previously permissive, low-accountability culture that had been masked by high-margin products (notably a strong whiskey selection).
When you started implementing the TRC method in your restaurant, what did you start seeing as far as some immediate changes as far as either just operations or team dynamics?
A lot of pushback. You know, I think I've got three different places right now. One of them is currently. We just closed it recently to do a change of direction, some remodel stuff. And of two of those places, everybody but I think two of the people are new now. Since we've implemented these changes, it really weeded out the bad culture more so than anything else. People just wanted to come to work and just kind of float through. And we were offering an okay product. I mean, we have this great whiskey selection that's kind of like a catch all. It's the safety net to the trapeze artist. All mistakes get covered up, right? It's like the economy in a good time. All the bad things just kind of get covered up by having higher margins and, you know, this really expensive product. But no, you can't get anywhere else. And that covers up a lot of the mistakes. So people have this false sense of success.
What do we always say? That sales side sins?
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely does. And doing. Starting to put in some more of these practices and just being harder about implementing them. Really let it come really, really clear who's on board to be better and who's just there collecting a paycheck. We pretty much took a completely different direction. After people either quit or net caught into dishonest things, we let them go.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
