SwingPointmedia - Reservations- Debby Alexander of Peabodys

Hey, welcome to reservations. I'm Jeff Harrison. Andrew is behind the camera. And today you can probably hear that already. Hold on a second.

There's a big West Central food service that literally just parked behind us. Maybe it'll get a little. Oh, there it goes. Okay, so now it'll quiet down. We're extremely excited today because we have someone with us today that quite frankly, she has run a restaurant in the Palm Springs area where we've seen people from Desi Arnaz to Elvis Presley to now, you know, you name it, they come to Palm Springs for many, many reasons. She has figured out, and she's going to share with you this morning, some tips and tricks that she's done that really have changed the strategy of what she does. She has an iconic restaurant called Peabody's. Her name is Debbie Alexander. Debbie, come on in. Hey, welcome.

Thank you. Yeah, it's fun to be here.

Hey, Debbie, before we get started, tell us a little bit about your restaurant and like, how long have you been here? Why the heck a restaurant?

Actually, initially it was supposed to be a coffee bar. And then some chain, unnamed chain coffee bar, moved across the street like two months after I bought it. So then we said, I said, alright, we're just gonna make it a restaurant.

Oh, so you, you actually pivoted after you already decided and you opened, purchased everything.

The previous owner knew the major chain was opening up. We didn't know. And then I was sitting in a chamber of commerce meeting and then they announced it. Everybody clapped. I'm like, okay, except you. Yeah, let's be flexible. What are we gonna do now?

Oh my gosh. Well, tell us a little bit about your restaurant. It's called Peabody's Cafe. Tell us a little bit about this because you've been in business since when?

I've had it since 94. The business has been here since 92, gang.

You know, when you run a business, especially a restaurant, we see them come in and out. It's almost like they change as often as I change my shoes. Right? To have something that's been around for 20 now, going on 25 years. No, excuse me, 26 years. How the heck did you do that?

Well, I think one is one of the best things about being a small business is you can be flexible. You can change, you know, you're not trapped in like how you're a motive for what you're supposed to do.

So there's no one corporate said, hey, this is how we do it.

No, you can do whatever you want. Make any decision you want. So we just stay flexible and we can change, you know, like, we, we. And you don't have to fit into a certain shape, you know, like right now, we do the breakfast seven days a week. We're known for the breakfast. We have our breakfast crowd, and then we kind of moonlight as a karaoke bar Friday and Saturday night. So we have totally different age groups. Kind of a different set of people, too, for those two.

Different groups, totally different vibes. So you don't offer. You don't offer karaoke over eggs?

I did it once for a radio station. It was the most awkward, awful experience. Like, no, you don't really want to hear Neil diamond if you know.

I don't have an answer. You're right. Hey, now we live in a destination or resort property, and we see fluxes in traffic. How do you deal with that? And what are some of the tricks that probably the average restaurant owner out there has no clue about?

Well, we tend. We have a lot of repeat tourists. So in the high season, you know, I would say that initially, you know, season starting is when Calgary gets their first snow. And I say we, you know, go get the case of peanut butter for the Canadians because that's what they eat. And we start in with the Canadian tourists.

Is that smooth or chunky?

Always smooth.

So you don't want to screw up if you're out there and you're thinking, hey, I need to put that on my menu.

Smooth, smooth, smooth. Peanut butter.

So that's your first influx of people coming in from Calgary.

The first massive influx is Calgary gets their first snow.

And so literally, you started adding peanut butter to the menu.

When we noticed that we don't even have to have it in the summer because there's no Canadians in town, we basically just have a little. We start buying the cases of it once we hit high season.

Okay, so now you have this influx of people coming in. There's our truck. We have this influx of people coming in, and they're in here during what time? To what time?

So what's nice about Palm Springs is we get like two bits of high season. We get October and November, which of the other desert cities don't get, and that's very strong. And our snowbirds stay longer, too. And then the real high season that the whole valley gets, it really is the February, March, April, May. That's huge.

So what do you do? Because here you're seven days a week, you know, we've been in here where there's still people sitting outside having breakfast. Where are you getting These people from.

So in this now, the minute the season goes down and the room rates start to go down, then everybody in LA starts checking their checking price line, starts checking the hotel room rates and checking the weather. And the minute you have anything overcast in LA and the room rates are like, you know, around 250 or under, then you start getting your influx of LA people. And that's a whole different market, a whole different set of people.

When you, you know, you were telling us, we were talking a little earlier, that you said you do something kind of unique. I've never heard anybody do this to determine, hey, when is it a time you're going to see this influx of people? It's not always because, because let's face it, it was 113 yesterday it was 114 the day before. It's gonna be a little cooler this weekend. Is that really the determining factor? Is it something totally different?

Debbie, our weather has almost nothing to do with if we're gonna be busy or not. See, so the only time, like if it's super humid, the LA people won't come out. But the biggest factor with LA people is their weather. And so we actually check the LA weather and we check the local river and the LA people will make that last minute decision based on, hey, if it's overcast and I got, you know, the kids are here for the weekend, it's overcast and I could either go get an Airbnb for nothing, put the kids in the pool, or get, get like three rooms, bring grandma, grandpa, the cousins, everybody, and do it and do it on the cheap. And it's, you know, all I have to do is take an afternoon siesta to get out of the heat. Then they start just piling in.

Because you're right. Like last night I was out near the pool, I was watering plants and whatnot, and the sun had gone down. It was very pleasant. Jump in the pool, you walk around, it's like, this is, this is really nice. You were saying something as a kid because you're not from here, are you?

No, I'm from the Boston area and I totally understand off season tourism. And I was explaining, I said, you know, if your kids are like 10, 11, 12, they don't know it's 120 degrees by the pool. They're just happy. Mom and dad brought them out. And the younger people, I was telling you coming out to party, they want the VIP room, you know, and they can only get that in the summer. I said, when I was a kid, we never went to Cape Cod. And when it was nice, we went to Cape Cod. And in the off season and my image of Cape Cod on the ocean is in a parka with mittens on. You know, taking your mittens off and touching the water or trying to play Frisbee with mittens on. I loved it. But I mean, it was definitely an off season rate that we were getting.

So you see a totally different crowd. You actually, I'm gonna say prospect for those people differently. So you said you're actually checking room rates?

Yeah, so like, just like I would necessarily go to LA and pay 450 for a hotel room to see my friends, they're checking the room rate. So when it drops down to like certain, you know, you get the high end hotels for a certain nice rate, that's when they start really coming in. So we actually will Friday night to see if we're gonna be busy or not, we'll start checking Priceline and stuff like that and see what the rates are.

So over the, over the period of time. So you said something about, hey, you're not this social media guru or butterfly, but in essence you're still using that technology, right? I mean, you're checking it online. I mean, you're.

So basically I'm 50, I'll admit it. And so I basically.

Life begins at 50, Debbie.

I get my younger crew. I just finally gave up Facebook and had my younger crew running it. And I say, hey, if you can get me a date off of it too, I'll give you an extra 50 bucks. But basically she knows how to run it.

We'll put Debbie's phone number along the bottom here in case.

So the other thing she just told me yesterday, she says people check in constantly when they're here. I said, I asked, I had to ask her, what does that mean, checking in? Like, do you mean they check in to see what.

We're.

Okay, we're back. You know, we were just talking about the weather.

I tell you what, equipment doesn't like it when we're in the, in the sun. So now we've moved into the shade. So, Debbie, we were talking about different types of people coming here and you were saying in the, in the summer it's a totally different vibe. You've got the younger people coming from la. Tell us about that.

Well, one of the things we make fun of is in the, in the high season we get a lot of Canadians and they sing the country western and we got a lot of Midwesterners. And then in the, in the like the off season, almost all these younger people from LA all probably went there to be a star. So they're really good singers, but they're working in, like, computers now or something else. But they're talent, seriously talented karaoke singers. And so in the summer, you actually get some of the most talented people. And the wait, too.

These are.

People don't even come out till 10 o' clock at night. And all of a sudden at 10 o' clock at night, you're like, oh, my God.

So you get a rush.

You get a rush and you get. Yeah, they don't even. The younger crowd doesn't just. They're late partiers and they. They also sing so much more R and B. And you actually get decent rap singers. Like, people actually can sing rap rather than, you know, think they can sing rap.

Yeah, yeah. So if there's one thing you would like people to know, the people that maybe they're going to come and visit, right. Or maybe other restaurant owners are going, gosh, you know, she sounds like she's really got it going on and she does. What's one piece of advice you would.

Share with someone, like another restaurateur? Yeah, I always say, like, one of the things that. The biggest mistake and the thing I usually tell restaurateurs is this is a seasonal market, right. And it's a finicky market for the locals. And I say, just because you're having a great high season, you need to put away, like, to go into the red almost a third of that, because it's gonna all suck back in for the summer. And it's. And you're gonna need that cushion. I see a lot of people start spending wildly with their money. Like, I make fun of this one place. I used to go to a Japanese place, and I would eat their special at night after work. And I saw this couple who had a bar and they were spending like $200 on sushi every night. I'm like, that's your summer money, honey. You guys shouldn't be doing that. But you. You can't tell them.

It's kind of hard. It's kind of hard to get that when you're just. When you're flush, right? And people are just coming in and they're kind of stepping over everybody. So the biggest thing here is say, hey, just like a squirrel budget for that off season. Because it's not like it totally is gone, right? I mean, you stay here. This is one of the reasons we do this show, Debbie, is we want to honor people like you that said, hey, you know, we're not going to shut down for four months. We're not going to hibernate. We're going to make it happen so that when locals like ourselves can come out, we can still enjoy Palm Springs in the nightlife or have breakfast in the morning. So we want to thank you for that. If somebody wants to come down, tell us where you're located. In Palm Springs, we're near the corner.

Of Tockowitz and Palm Canyon. So we're right downtown. We're caddy quarter for where the big hotel, the Rowan just got put up. And we're actually in the oldest section of Palm Springs. We're in what's called the LA Plaza, which is built in 1936.

Okay. Is it just down the street from where the, the Follies used to be?

Well, actually that used to be a huge part of our business. That used to be 25% of our business. So we've had to make huge adjustments once the Follies went down.

Maybe you ought to buy that and get it going again.

Well, there's always a rumor that. Not that I'm gonna buy it, but there's always a rumor somebody's gonna do something with it. So we'd like to see that.

We went there several times. Love the Follies. But hey, if you're hungry or you love to sing, even if your rap isn't as good as Debbie says it should be to be here in the summer, come on down. Give us our, give us your address.

134 South Palm Canyon Drive.

Debbie, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. Make sure you support Debbie's business, Peabody's Cafe down here in Palm Springs and others during the summer. And then, oh, oh, before I let you go, you said in the summer you also get a little different clientele. That's not from the northwest, it's not from la. Where are they coming from?

So I was making fun of one of your associates is from, from Australia. I say the international tourists you get in the high season are these very polished, very well dressed people from like Paris or they're from London and you could tell they're city slickers. And then I say in the off season you'll get a whole bunch of British people and you'll, you'll rave about London. They're like, don't go to London. They're like from a half an hour hour, you get the Australian people from the outback, not from Sydney. Like you get the people who are probably coming here because they. They want to do something different, but they want those different rates. And so you get a huge amount of tourists, but it's a different crowd.

Now, I notice. I notice You've got several TVs in here and you happen to have on the. What.

We're big on the World cup because we open early and the World cup is early. And people, for some reason, associate us with the World cup probably because we do tend to get a more international crowd.

I notice there's soccer balls on the floor in there.

Well, my crew is, like, so insanely into the World Cup. They understand every nuance. We actually have a board out here, and we write down all the different. Like, who's doing well, who's not. And some teams were kicked out, and I wrote RIP next to them, and my crew said, don't do that. They're like, if those people walk in, they're gonna really hate you for that.

Well, again, hey, this gal is. She is such a wealth of knowledge, and I can't thank her enough for taking time out of her day to do this. I really appreciate it, Debbie, continue success. And I hope that when you're watching this, you'll come down to Debbie. By the way, when you come in, check in, but tell Debbie what that means. All right, Come on in. We don't want to hold you up. We've got more people flooding in. Thank you so much.

You're not going to be on camera just because you walk by.

We'll see you again on reservations. I'm Jeff Harrison. Andrew McCauley's behind the counter or behind the camera, and we'll catch you again tomorrow.