Advice Line with Danny Meyer of Shake Shack

Sponsors and Show Introduction

0:00This episode is brought to you by JustWorks, one platform that handles the complicated stuff, payroll, benefits, global hiring, and makes running a small business 1 million percent smoother. Stick around. I'll tell you more later in the show. Building a business means being 10 people at once, the strategist, the spreadsheet person, the one fixing the office sink. U.S. Bank made a card for exactly that kind of hustle. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association,

0:34pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply.

0:46Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that

Danny Meyer Joins the Show

1:13you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. This week, I'm joined by legendary restaurateur, Danny Meyer, founder of the Union Square Hospitality Group. Danny, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Guy. If any of you listening have ever eaten out in New York City, there's a chance that you know Danny's story. He is the man behind Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern. And he's the guy who took a single temporary hot dog stand in Madison Square Park and turned it into Shake Shack, which is now a global publicly traded burger

1:46empire. Danny, you were last on the show in June of 2020. And for those of you who haven't heard the story, we will put a link to it in the show notes. So check it out. That was a crazy time. The world was sheltering in place and dining rooms were dark and it certainly felt like a long time ago. I think in 2022, you stepped down to become executive chairman of the Union Square Group. So first of all, before we get into that, just kind of give us an update about what's kind of going on in your life right now.

2:17Yeah, well, I actually stepped up to become executive chairman. A lot of people thought I was retiring, which could not have been further from the truth. And by being executive chairman, which was actually a term I had never even heard of before, it gave me the chance to continue to come into work every day, but to spend more of my time on fewer of the things, but those things that uniquely lined up with my gifts. So really it has to do with the culture of the company, the culinary product of the company, and then all of the creative outlets we have for new businesses. And that's what I spend my

2:50time on. Whereas before I was the guy, you know, hopefully making the trains run on time. I'm just not doing that today.

Building Enduring Business Culture

2:57You have a new book out. Congrats. What could possibly go right? A big part of the book is about building an enduring culture and keeping teams aligned. Can you tell us a little bit about how you think about culture? I think culture at its most basic is a word to describe how we do things around here. And every company, whether it's intentional or not, every family, every fraternity, sorority, every sports team, there's a way they do things around here. I think the biggest way to build culture is to have

3:33a common set of behaviors that everybody in the organization understands that they are responsible for really emanating. So for example, I actually traveled a long way. I used to think that what we really needed was family values. And we had those in place for about 15 years. And, you know, I wouldn't argue with any of them, but they weren't specific to our culture. And the other problem with that guy was that it was disingenuous in retrospect to call them family values because a

4:07business is not a family. And I noticed that every time we held someone accountable to the point that there just wasn't going to be a place for them on our team going forward, people would go into deep grief because you don't fire a family member. And so the big transition I had was really evolving from family values to expected behaviors is the shorthand where everybody knows exactly what you're talking about. They know exactly what you're expected of them. And this is the equation that I

4:37figured out is our culture is ultimately all of the wanted behaviors that we celebrate actively minus all of the unwanted behaviors that we tolerate. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Reed Hastings has long had a similar view, right? That a business is not a family. And famously has, you know, developed a whole sort of theory of management around this. He was on the show several months ago, and we talked about it. So it is interesting, right? And I

5:08think that's been evolving in many businesses over the last 10 or 15 years. As you know, hospitality, hospitality, it can be an overused term, right? I mean, everybody, but many restaurant groups talk about hospitality as a key value. And how can I as a customer tell in a few minutes whether a restaurant or business genuinely has a culture of hospitality or if it's just talking about having one?

5:39Yeah, just look at the staff members when you walk in. If the staff members are focused on doing the job as well as it can be done and they're having fun with each other, if they check both of those boxes, that joie de vivre or that human energy is going to become one of the ingredients in your meal as well. I've been to restaurants where everything was technically perfect, but there was no love there. And I don't need to go back to that restaurant. I really want to see both of those boxes checked. By the way, that works for me. I can get on an airplane and watch the two flight attendants

6:15pushing the cart up and down the aisle and tell if they're focused on their job. And if they're having fun with each other, they're probably having a playful experience with the passengers. And at the end of the day, the real job of that airplane is to get me where I'm supposed to go on time and alive, get me my luggage back. The stuff that's happening in the airplane is to determine whether that's going to become my favorite airline or not. Yeah. How much is that about management? Probably about 120%. And when it's not happening, it's 150% because of management.

6:49Yeah. Management should take responsibility when it's not working and I think deserves a lot of the credit when it is working. Yeah. We actually have a whole philosophy, which we call having a day one mentality. And it's so crucial. It's the reason that Union Square Cafe is 41 years old and Gramercy Tavern is 31 and Shake Shack's 22 and the Modern is 22. It's because every day we ask our teams to imagine that it's day one. Remember the pride you felt when there was not a scratch in the floor,

7:23not a smudge on the wine glasses, and every plate that came out of the kitchen was as perfect as you could get it because you assumed that on any given night, there were three restaurant critics in the audience. And so by taking that day one mentality, even at 10 years or 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, it keeps the restaurants fresh and improving. And that's the fun I get out of this. Yeah. Well, Danny, we got some callers waiting to ask some pressing questions. Are you ready to take

7:54our first call?

Ponyboy Slinges and Brand Vibe

7:55Yes. All right. Let's bring on our first caller. Welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please. My name is Janelle Bass. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. Hello. I am the co-founder of Pony Boy Slings. We're a bourbon-based canned cocktail that drinks more like a nostalgic soda. Well, thanks for calling in, Janelle. So Pony Boy Slings, it's a canned alcoholic beverage made with bourbon, but it's more like soda. So what do you mean? It's sweeter, it's easier to drink?

8:31Yes. All of the above. So Mike, my husband, and I created this, and we come from the beverage and bartending industry, hospitality background. And we realize in Kentucky, in bourbon country, you know, everyone's drinking bourbon the same, whether it's an old-fashioned, a Manhattan, or it's on the rocks and neat, which is great. We love that. But as bartenders, we were having a lot more fun playing with the flavors of bourbon and blending them into these light cocktails. And so we have a strawberry, a cream soda, and a tart black cherry.

9:06And when you say lighter, are they lower in alcohol? So lower than a typical bourbon cocktail, we're 7%. So we're not like at that 30% or 40% that an old-fashioned would be at. But more like a beer. Exactly. We say we're the bourbon option for a beer occasion. So when did you guys launch? We launched into market at the very end of 2023. So first full year was in 24. And where are you selling? I mean, alcohol is highly regulated, right? So are you selling

9:37mainly in Kentucky right now? Yes. So we are in Kentucky. We opened Tennessee last year. We have a distributor here. So we're off-premise, you know, retail. And then we're also in a good amount of on-premise with some bars and restaurants. Awesome. And tell us what your question is for us. So I guess like at the end of the day, Danny, I just, I love that you're here because there's a lot of synergies, you know, because Mike and I come from the bartending scene, we really cared

10:07about what we put into that can. We don't use preservatives. We use real juice. We use local bourbon from Kentucky and bitters. Our conversion rate in store when we do tastings is crazy. It's like between 60 and 70%. People taste it, they buy it. And so it's great. Where we have a little bit of a hiccup, you know, when we're not in the store to be able to do the tastings and there's the sea of RTDs that you're looking at, you know, how do we get, you know, the person to feel excited about trying us with a packaged product like ours? How do we build that

10:43sense of hospitality into the company itself when we're not actually there? Okay. So you're in the ready to drink aisle and how do you build that sense of hospitality into the brand? Okay. Danny, I want to bring you in here. Meet Janelle, Ponyboy Slings. Great idea. But she's trying to figure out how to build that sense of hospitality into the brand. First of all, congratulations. It's exciting starting a new company. My question for you is who personifies your brand? So when somebody goes up and down the aisle, they've got a can,

11:16and I'm sure that the can has really nice label or nice design to it. Is there any connection with any person? Some incipient brands bring on a celebrity, but you could do it yourselves. I mean, people love a good homemade story. I think that that's an interesting question because Mike and I definitely stepped into creating these, making something that we want to drink. And so we haven't, we don't specifically have a certain

11:47like celebrity or persona, except for, you know, when we think about our demographic, we do tend to reach the older millennials and Gen X, and it skews slightly more female when we do tastings. But it's so hard because we're still so new. And then Tennessee really brought us a bunch of info too. Janelle, have you guys had like Ponyboy parties or pop-ups or backyard event tastings? You've done those. Yes. So we, that is one thing that we love. I mean, that's the thing I miss about bartending is

12:21curating a space and where you get to sit at my bar and I get to drive the ship of how you feel for the evening. So with Ponyboy, we do tons of pop-ups and events around Louisville. Mike DJs, we have a 1977 Chevy van we, we park and do tastings out of. So we definitely try to curate a moment and a feeling and a vibe. I mean, our website, our Instagram, it's very retro seventies. When we launched, we decided to go opposite of traditional bourbon in a bottle. And we kind of

12:56based it on that Studio 54 feeling of like, once you're in the club, everybody's welcome. It's this big party. And so that's kind of the vibe that we took on. And when you do the events, which I thought Guy's question was right on the money, you're bringing your vibe to that. And you also create a sense amongst the drinkers that they are part of a community. You're not selling a product. You're selling the opportunity to belong to a community where people like us do things like this.

13:27The question is, how do you curate a group of people who say, I am now part of a community that does this thing? Exactly. And, you know, we do tons of stuff here in Louisville and we've got some repeat buys. I mean, our sales are pretty decent for what we've put in. It's just been bootstrapped by us pretty much the whole time. But yeah, just trying to, as it scales to keep going with that feeling when, you know, we're not in the store or we're not there to do the pop-up and for people to, I don't know, just still feel like they're being taken care of.

14:01I mean, that's the question here, right? When somebody encounters the product and neither you or your partner are there, what do you want that person to feel? And the answer to that question is what your brand strategy is. So one thing I was thinking, I'm looking at your cans. They're cool. I like the 70s retro feel. But, you know, I would think about the can as your bartender. Like that's the, you know, in lieu of a bartender saying, oh, you got to try this amazing thing. It's the can initially can sort of be that. I think of

14:32liquid death. This is murder your thirst on the can. I mean, could you put something cool or unexpected like under the tab when you pop it or even on the can that says like, come on, join the party or come on in or pop on the pony, something like that. You know, you should, you could try to be playful with, cause the can, it looks nice, but it's very conventional. It tells the name of the drink and what's in it. And you've got the cool logo, but maybe you can be playful. Danny used that word playful when you know hospitality is working. Maybe you try that on the can.

15:03There's a terrific example in the wine world. Have you heard of Ramona, the canned wine? I have actually. Yes. So it's a terrific product. It was launched by a sommelier, someone who used to work for us named Jordan Salcido. And she was very specific. She wanted to give women a product that they could drink while guys were chugging the beer. And she did just a great launch where when you buy a can of Ramona, you feel like you are with Jordan. So I think that would

15:39be a really good case study. Have a look at that one. Yeah. I'm looking at that site now. It looks really cool. That packaging's great. Also Olipop, you know, a new kind of soda. I mean, but, but you are going for a certain vibe and I think you can use the can as, as the introduction, as your ambassador. So I would think about that. Yeah. I love that. I think that's fantastic. That's a great idea. Janelle Bass, the brand is called Ponyboy Slinges. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much for having me. Bye guys.

16:09Thank you.

Sponsors and Midroll Breaks

16:11We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around. You're listening to the Advice Line on how I built this lab. Starting a small business is the fun part. Running one, that's where it gets complicated because all of a sudden you're hiring people and you've got to pay them on time and figure out benefits. And nobody handed you a manual for any of it. It's a lot to carry, especially when you're

16:48already doing five other jobs. That's what JustWorks is for. They take the complex administrative stuff off your plate. Payroll benefits, global hiring, so you can get back to the part of the business you actually wanted to do in the first place, which I'm guessing is not paperwork. So if you're a small business owner trying to figure it all out on your own, you don't have to. Head to JustWorks.com and take some weight off your small business shoulders. That's JustWorks.com. Stop making

17:21it so hard on yourself. Head to JustWorks.com and start easing those small business worries in just a few clicks because you don't have to worry when it just works. As I mentioned earlier, every founder I talk to does it all. The big picture dreaming, the late night spreadsheets, the 6 a.m. coffee run nobody asked you to make, and every dollar you spend on your business should work just as hard as you do. That's why I want to tell you about the U.S. Bank Triple Cash Rewards

17:53Visa Business Card. Right now, you can earn an extra $750 cash back. Plus, you get 3% cash back on eligible purchases at gas and EV charging stations, office supply stores, cell phone service providers, and restaurants, the things you're already buying. And here's the kicker. 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 billing cycles. That's breathing room when you need it most.

18:24Visit usbank.com slash business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply.

18:39Welcome back to the Advice Line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group. And Danny, let's take another call. You ready? Let's go.

Angel Oak Smokehouse Expansion

18:58Hi there. Thank you for having me. My name is Jade Taylor, and I am the co-founder of Angel Oak Smokehouse. We are a premium salmon smokehouse based in Charleston, South Carolina. And we hope to make it a household name in a category that we believe doesn't really have one right now. Thanks for calling in, Jade. So Angel Oak Smokehouse, this is a, you smoke salmon and sell it from a storefront, online? Where is it sold? So right now, we launched 15 months ago, and we are primarily in retail. Our first major retailer

19:33was Whole Foods. We launched there in March in the Southeast region. And how many products do you sell? Right now we have two. We have our cold smoked salmon, which you know traditionally would go on a bagel. And then we have our hot smoked salmon, which is smokier, more like a piece of salmon you would cook at home. Really flakes beautifully and much more versatile in what you can do with it. Well, are you a chef? What's your background? How did you get into smoking salmon?

20:04I am not, no. So the story really starts over 40 years ago with my dad. He was salmon fishing in the north of England. He caught too many, took them home, and he put them in the family bathtub. And when my grandfather found them, he said, you got to get rid of them. So my dad smoked them and sold them in the village. He left school at 16 and then ended up building his career around smoking fish. I went to Duke University and studied mechanical engineering. So started my career as an aerospace engineer at Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner. First as a repair engineer and then as a design engineer.

20:40You could have called it flying fish at that point. You could have transitioned in a smoking salmon. I love that. A smooth transition. And now you said you are in whole, how many Whole Foods are you in? We're in the Southeast region right now. We just launched a couple of months ago. It's 42 stores. Great. We just got a PO this week from Harris Teeter. Nice. For 20 of their stores. And then next month we'll be launching in all of Fresh Markets, 170 stores. And you say we, it's you and? It's me and my husband.

21:10Okay. Before we dive in further, what's your question? So, Danny, like you, we care deeply about having a consistent, high quality experience every time for our customers. Should we continue to expand in retail and in food service? Or should we take that leap and go into the direct to consumer shipping from our website, knowing that one bad delivery could mean spoiled fish on someone's doorstep instead of giving them that premium experience that we've worked so hard to build? All right. Danny, Jade, they're doing premium smoked salmon. They've got some great traction

21:46with Whole Foods and retail. Should they go DDC? Should they start to explore that, knowing that there's risks involved? Well, first of all, I'm excited to try your product because I grew up hating salmon, mostly because every time I had it, it was overcooked, smelly. Although the first time I got to try smoked salmon, I loved it. And then the first time I got to try hot smoked salmon, I love that too. So you obviously have a product that is appealing to people. So you have what

22:18we call a high class problem. And now the question is, you know, you've got a good thing. You've got a great story. It's fantastic that you're carrying on with your family tradition that that actually makes the salmon taste even better, if you ask me. And you're clearly not concerned or you don't seem to be concerned about Whole Foods getting a bad shipment. So what's the trouble with selling it in other ways? Like you are confident that they're going to handle the product the right way, the way you're packaging it. So what is your concern? Is it shipping?

22:54Correct. It's letting go of that control that once it leaves our facility, we're dependent on UPS or FedEx, getting it to that customer and then reliant on them getting it from their doorstep into the refrigerator. Now, have you heard of Goldbelly? I have heard of Goldbelly, yep. Because that's a company that we like so much, we invested in it. And they ship daily all kinds of products that I think are even more perishable than yours. They ship my daughter's ice cream. And it was packed frozen, it arrives frozen. They ship Joe's Stone Crab. They have so

23:31many companies that have otherwise perishable products. And all they do is provide the logistics for you so that when it leaves you, it leaves exactly as you want it. You get to bundle on to their incredibly low shipping rates, which means that your customers are not paying some exorbitant higher fee for all the shipping. As you know, so often that's the biggest cost when you get DTC stuff shipped, especially perishable.

24:01Yeah. I'm going to take a slightly contrarian view on this one, Danny, because Goldbelly is amazing. They do great stuff. And it may be a great option, whether you decide to do it on your own or with them. But I would say down the road, right? Because right now, you're in 42 Whole Foods, you're in 12 to 15 Harris Teeters, you're barely a year plus some change old. That's pretty great traction, right? And so I guess I would say, do you want to also get into DTC right now before you

24:36have solidified those retail outlets? The other thing is, if you want to do it, I would, I would start very limited, limited, like geographic experiment, and then really track everything like, are there repeat orders? You know, that's the most important because if a customer isn't repeating the order, then you don't have a direct to consumer business, you're just you're sending an expensive way of sending people salmon that they could go buy at Whole Foods. So I would really wait. And if you want to do it, start small in a small geographic region. That's my feeling. But

25:11Danny, you may think differently. Well, I think similarly and differently. So I'll try both sides of that coin. The similar thing is that I do agree that it's a good thing to really solidify what's working right now. It's also a really good idea to ask yourself, why do we want to do it? How much growth do you want? What are you hoping for? How much growth can you have? I have no idea about how solid your supply of salmon is. I have no idea what would happen if you'd triple that or quadruple that. I have no idea how big your

25:46capacity is for smoking. So, you know, the book that I just wrote is called What Could Possibly Go Right? And what happens if it does go really right? Are you going to be prepared for that? Is that something you really want? So that's the part of Guy's point of view that I agree with, which is it's not really about DTC versus in-store versus on-premise. It's really about what are your goals? But then the contrary point of view, I think it's worth dabbling a little bit with a platform like

26:19Goldbelly because you can do it just one day a week. My daughter's ice cream place called Cafe Pana, she doesn't have capacity or interest in selling more than one or two days a week on Goldbelly. But here's what she's learned. She knows that if you don't have it available in your local Whole Foods because you live in St. Louis or Cleveland or Idaho, wherever, you still have an opportunity.

26:50She's been able, without adding bricks and mortar and without adding any capacity, to have a national audience. And she can actually tell you exactly where the most demand is. While she has no interest in opening bricks and mortar in, you know, other cities, if ever she were to, she has built-in data on where there is actually demand beyond anything she could learn if she were just selling at her own place. So I like dipping your toe if, in fact, you're interested in growing.

27:23What about the dipping the toes being in more of a B2B model? So there are a lot of these gourmet shops and markets across the country that have been emailing us and would love our product. But again, we don't have large nationwide distribution yet. So they can't get it besides us shipping it to them. So maybe that's how we dip our toes. I think that's even smarter. Find one or two places that you would be proud to own yourself and create a scarcity where everybody else wants it.

27:54Yes. But only those one or two can get it. And now all of a sudden, your brand has even more luster to go with it. Yeah, I agree. I mean, look, you've got a lot of leverage. You're in 42 Whole Foods, right? And the advantage there is you can also sample in those places and people can try it. But you've got some leverage here. If these other smaller grocers want it, I agree with Danny, the scarcity. And also, you want to make sure there's a minimum order there. You don't want to be selling $40 worth of salmon. You want to be selling $250, $300 worth of salmon. Danny, any final words of advice? I think

28:30your idea is great. Try Goldbelly, maybe. And Danny, any final thoughts? Keep smoking. Keep smoking. No, it's exciting. It sounds like you guys are off to the races. Yeah. Jade, thanks so much for calling in Angel Oak Smokehouse in South Carolina. Good luck. Thank you so much, both of you. Thank you. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to The Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your

29:19calls with the legendary Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and the man behind Shake Shack and Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe and so many restaurants. And let's get back into it and take

Boost Couscous Protein and Retail

29:31another call. I'm ready. All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to The Advice Line. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Hey, Guy. Hey, Danny. My name is Barb Rujas. I'm calling from Carbondale, Colorado, small little town. And my company is called Boost Coos. We're the world's first better for you Couscous. Thanks for calling it because a couscous usually is just, it's like wheat, like tiny wheat into tiny little grains that you cook like rice. And so this is different than that couscous that

30:07most of us know of? Yeah, great question. Yeah, most people actually think that couscous is a grain similar to quinoa. So impressive that you know that it's a regular couscous is actually just semelina flour and water. So it's just pasta. Yeah, our couscous is high in protein and high in fiber. We have 18 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber per serving. And really importantly, we are only made with three simple natural ingredients. So it's just made out of chickpea flour, lentil flour, and pea flour. So all of that is naturally occurring. We don't use any xanthan gum

30:39or any. So no wheat at all? No wheat at all. It's actually, yeah, gluten free. And it's been a huge part of our demographic of buyers. That's amazing. How long have you been making this? Yeah, so we launched in December of last year. So just, you know, we're under a year old now. And so we, is it you and a team or just you and the oil we? It's me and my co-founder. He's my best friend and kind of adventure partner out in Colorado.

31:09Did you guys invent this? So yeah, I was born in Israel. That's where the name bar comes from and kind of grew up eating couscous and always loved how quick and easy it is to make and how versatile it is. You can cook it in about five minutes, which is way faster than rice and pasta. And then you can eat it hot or cold, whether that's on a salad or, you know, as a rice replacement hot. And yeah, was looking for a better for you option and realized that there wasn't one, obviously like on the pasta aisle and there's bonsai and brahmi and Google's so many options.

31:42A lot of heavy protein pastas now, which are great. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So how did you invent this? How did you just started playing around with chickpea and lentil flour and pea flour? Yeah, it's a good question. That could probably be its own separate podcast because it took us a year and a half. But the short version is we started in our kitchen and we tried to, infuse protein into regular couscous, failed. And then through a lot of trial and error, we finally landed on our current product and the co-man that we're working with.

32:14Yeah, that's a really cool. And tell us, how is the business doing so far? So the first half of this year, we were really focused on direct to consumer and built a pretty thriving business there. We've shipped over 150,000 boxes. We have a $2 million run rate. Is this self-funded? Yeah, all bootstrapped. How did you reach so many people? How did you have the money to do advertising and all those things? Yeah. So we're first order profitable. So the money really went into the inventory,

32:45but because we're first order profitable, we're able to kind of keep investing into this marketing engine. And we are doing a small raise now as well to kind of help with a retail expansion. And we'll be launching into a couple of retailers before the end of the year. I love innovative ideas like this. All right, before we dive in further, what's your question for us? Yeah. So we've had a good amount of success on direct to consumer. We're actually starting to have a lot of success in retail. The next logical step is going into food services and specifically

33:18fast casual restaurants like Kava and Sweetgreen that already have that kind of build your own bowl with rice and other grains. And we feel that Bouscous could be a complimentary to those other grains, obviously adding more fiber and more protein. Anything that you guys could help with in terms of like bringing those ingredients in? What does that decision look like? How can we set ourself up for success there? All right, Danny, I want to bring you in here. I mean, 18 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber,

33:49interesting new way of eating couscous. Thoughts, questions, ideas? Well, you're on the right track in terms of how everybody wants to eat these days. You start to see protein showing up in coffee drinks, right? And fiber showing up in soft drinks. You know you're on the right track. And I think it's a great idea that you're doing this. As far as getting into food service, I'm wondering if a good place to start might be instead of going for the big boys right off the bat, because they're going to need supply that you may

34:25or may not have already. They're going to need some quality assurance. Not that you wouldn't have the quality assurance, but their purchasing departments have so many boxes you have to check. I would start with a smaller business, maybe even a onesie or twosie that already has couscous on their menu, because then you don't have the added burden of trying to convince the big guys. You know, I don't think Kava has a skew of couscous. Maybe they should, or maybe they will someday, thanks to you. But I would

35:00start with someone who already has that on their menu, learn with them, get a couple good victories under your belt. That'll probably lead you to another 3Z and 4Z. And there's time. I mean, you'll definitely get there. If the product, if it works in places that already have couscous, then I think it's a good time to take it to someone where you've got to educate them even before you sell them. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Danny, you know, this makes me think of what, I mean, it's not a great

35:35analogy, because Impossible Meat is, you know, it's not doing as well as it was at one point. But, you know, their sort of rollout plan was really interesting. They didn't just all of a sudden start selling it at Safeway. They started with, I think they sent it to like David Chang, you know, other like high-end chefs and said, hey, here is Impossible Meat. Like, we want you to experiment with this. And that got the brand a lot of attention and buzz. And I agree that, you know, Cava, Sweetgreen, these kinds of places, they need to know that this works at, you know, at a food

36:10service level, and it can be cooked quickly, and it doesn't get mushy when it's sitting in these large containers, and you know, that people are going down the line. And so there are all these questions they're going to need to answer. And so experimenting small could be interesting. Sending it to chefs could be interesting. But I also think you've got a great thing going, right? You're going to get into stores, you said, maybe. You've got DTC working. I mean, you're just starting out, and you're, you know, you're already hitting, what, close to $2 million in sales this year. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I think really good feedback on starting small. We certainly

36:46should. And we've had a couple of smaller restaurants reach out, so we should definitely test that out. And I really like the idea of sending it out to chefs. We've done some of that, and we've had chefs get really creative, and even some creators online, you know, make dolmas and make sushi with our buscus, and some of that has gone viral. So yeah, I think it could help both for the food service side and our DTC business. So really appreciate that. Yeah. And I also don't want to understate the part of this, in addition to a Cava or a Sweetgreen

37:19trying to figure out if it works for them, I don't want to omit the fact that you have to figure out how it works for you. So as a very young business, scaling is not an automatic thing. You need more people on the team. That comes with cultural responsibilities. You need more equipment. You need more sourcing. There's just so much as you scale, and I bet you'll get there. I really, I feel confident that you will get there. One of the really cool things besides hitting the protein

37:50and fiber moment, you're also hitting the Mediterranean moment. We've never had more interest in Mediterranean cooking in this country. And if you did your homework, there's probably six to 12 pretty well-known chefs around the country who already have couscous on their menu as an ingredient in one way, shape, or form. And they can be really good proof points and advocates. I think that's a great strategy. Yeah. We did an episode on the show a couple months ago about Catalina Crunch,

38:21really interesting brand. I think it's worth listening to, and Danny, you know this, a lot of these small upstart brands, they find a co-manufacturer that can make it, and it's a good partnership. And I would also target fitness people, people who are just vegetarian or non-vegetarian, people just trying to boost their protein intake for workouts. Yeah. The protein maxing crowd is definitely something that we have been targeting. You throw chicken in there, you've got 40 grams of protein.

38:52Exactly. Yeah. Parents have been loving it for their kids as well. There's no choking hazard. It's high in iron. Yeah. And then the GLP One crowd is also loving it because it's high in protein and high in fiber. So we've kind of found a lot of different niches and now trying to double and triple down on them. And Danny, we're actually hiring our first employee in the next month or so, and culture is definitely going to be a piece of that. So I actually just bought your book, so I'm really excited to read it. Thank you. Send him some boost couscous and then he'll send you a signed copy.

39:23There we go. I love that. Yeah. It sounds like a fair trade. And we'll cut Guy a little commission in the process. Absolutely. All right. Barb Ruhis, the brand is called Boost. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling in. Thanks so much.

39:37Cool idea. I love when we get things that people have just invented, created, you know, like, or taken a product and just a completely different approach to it. I like these kinds of products. Yeah. Isn't it fun to walk around a corner and discover a flavor, an idea that you never would have thought of yourself? Totally. Danny, before I let you go, a quick question, which we ask all of our guests, which

Danny Meyer on Resilience

40:02is, knowing what you know now after 40 plus years in this business, if you could go back to you when you were starting out, you know, when 27, 28 years old, starting your first restaurant, what advice could you go back and give the young Danny Meyer that might've been helpful for him?

40:18I think I would tell the young Danny Meyer not to get too upset when the graph goes down, because it's always going to come back up again. It might even come back up even higher than the last time. I'll never forget 1987. So two years after I opened Union Square Cafe, I really thought it was the end because we had something called Black Friday. All of a sudden I said, well, that was a fun two-year career. And then, you know, you go through something like that and then you go through 9-11 and Superstore and Sandy and the Great Recession and, of course, the worst one, the pandemic.

40:54And you realize that it's a fool's errand to bet that that down dip is not going to come back up. So the root of the word hospitality is hope. And I think we're actually in a business that can actually take pessimism and fear and we can be the antidote to that. So that's what I've learned. And it's like a winemaker. You don't wish a bad vintage on any winemaker, but next one will probably be better. That's Danny Meyer. He's the founder of Union Square Hospitality Group. And by the way,

Credits and Closing Remarks

41:23if you haven't heard Danny's original episode, we will definitely put a link to it in the show notes. Go back and check it out. It's a great story. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. Let's cut right to the chase. This is one of the greatest pieces of advice I got from my late grandfather, Irving Harris. He said, you know, stop complaining about problems. He said, problems is the definition of business. The people who do best in business aren't the ones with the least problems are the people who solve their problems better and have more fun doing it with

41:56better people. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to

42:34reach you. And we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Massini with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. How I Built This.