Mark Mittleman [00:00:00]:

I want to take care of my staff, but I also want to take care of my blood, my family. So the it's, how do you make all things work? You know, imagine the magic formula is got to be 15, 20%. You're now like to hit 20 is really hard. But with the litigious world that we live in, that's kind of the magic number.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:32]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today by Mark Middleman, founder of Entangled Particles. Mark, thanks for joining us.

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Mark Mittleman [00:00:43]:

Thank you so much for having me.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:44]:

Yeah, I'm excited, excited to talk about, you know, entangled Particles, about your experience on the culinary side. So to get started, obviously let's just first of all get out of the way. What is Entangled Particles for people listening?

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Mark Mittleman [00:00:57]:

So Entangled Particles hospitality is all encompassing. 360 Hospitality consulting firm. We do pretty much anything that you could need from rebrands to startups to openings to refreshes to I'm not making enough money. How do you do this thing? How do you operate this car? You name it. Basically we do it. We have some team members that come in and out on both sides. But basically the inspiration was everything is connected in the restaurant business. In hospitality, people sometimes think the front, the back, it's all connected.

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Mark Mittleman [00:01:32]:

And entangled particles, it's a quantum physics reference. It's what Einstein called spooky action at a distance. Two particles can be connected over time in space. They still haven't quite figured it out faster than the speed of light.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:47]:

That's a pretty cool reference. Okay, I like that. Entangled Particles, very cool name. We'll definitely get more into that. And then, and I want to definitely plug how people can reach you, what kind of stuff you can do, how you can help, all that good stuff. And we'll get into that. But one thing that's super fun about the WISKing it all podcast is we like to get people's stories of like, how they ended up where they are. And we've had people from, you know, chefs, culinary side, bar operators, just pure operators of franchises of hundreds of locations, the tech side, etc.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:20]:

Etc. So kind of people of all walks of life, but it's interesting to see kind of where they started. So let's maybe take it back. I'm curious to know more about your, your early journey and, and we'll kind of get back to here, but what was your entry point into the hospitality industry?

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Mark Mittleman [00:02:34]:

Early to mid-90s? I had hair down to here and a beard like this and very hippie ish time. Following the band Phish around the country doing tours in the mid-90s. And I was hired at a little restaurant in eastern Long island, where I'm from, and to met the owner, and he threw me the keys and said, come tomorrow morning and scrub the toilets and wash the dishes. So that was my first entry into hospitality. I always loved cooking and stuff with my mom and my grandmother. At that point, I don't really think I had a lot of employment opportunities with my look. It's definitely a different time. The salad lady loved me.

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Mark Mittleman [00:03:17]:

Eileen, I remember her name. She loved me. And so she started teaching me how to crack oysters and make salads and just the vibe in the back of the house. I just sort of fell in love with, like, just energy, what I call organized chaos of it all. It's just there's such a family. It's also trauma bonding a little bit. So there's an institution place called the Elbow Room in Jamesport, New York. From there, I started cooking at this restaurant, a German restaurant, and that was my first hot side job.

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Mark Mittleman [00:03:49]:

And the chef there had been cooking for many years, but it just recently, in that, like, year that I started there, decided to go to culinary school. He was graduating that year and he was like, you're really good at this. You should go to school. So that's what got me into culinary school. That ended up being the first restaurant that I ever bought, was the first restaurant I ever cooked on the hot side. Oh, it was, yeah. It's called Hans and Gasthaus at the time. Still loved, still love a schnitzel to this day.

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Mark Mittleman [00:04:17]:

Still love, still. Still have a fondness for. I can bang up potato pancakes like you wouldn't believe. I used to make thousands of them. Wow.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:26]:

I got asked there. Just. I want to keep going through the journey, but just quick pause there, because, you know, from working in a restaurant and then buying your first restaurant, I'm sure that was a significant shift. Can you talk a bit about that? Because we have a lot of restaurant listeners. Some are operators and managers, some are owners. So I'd love to hear a bit about your experience and what are some things that maybe you didn't anticipate going from, you know, working to owning.

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Mark Mittleman [00:04:53]:

I was definitely too young and raised money, family, used my own. And it was so many lessons. I mean, if there was a time machine, I would have told myself, this is not a good idea. You shouldn't be doing this. You're not ready for this. It was successful, but we opened in May of 2001 and we got our New York Times review September 4, 2001.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:18]:

Oh, wow.

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Mark Mittleman [00:05:19]:

And then a week later was very good for the New York Times sitting on my wall still.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:24]:

That's cool.

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Mark Mittleman [00:05:25]:

A week later on, my birth me was 9 11.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:29]:

Oh, yeah. So damn. Okay. Yeah, yeah, Damn.

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Mark Mittleman [00:05:34]:

So Eastern Long island, the whole world changed. And it was so many different lessons. The smartest thing that we did was and if anybody can do this, if you're operating a restaurant, if you can own the property, that'll save your ass every time. It give you some backing. So just the whole world changed. Everything tanked. It was, you know, just playing survival. Like, how hard are we going to be kicked in the balls this month versus, you know, trying to build a business? But I learned a lot about marketing.

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Mark Mittleman [00:06:03]:

I developed a lot of relationships. Easter Long island has a lot of vineyards and started doing events at vineyards and just really started to build, started through promotions and nights and just started to build like a base of the clientele and it kind of feeds into the journey. So the first east island is very seasonal, like the Hamptons. Okay. So Memorial Day to Labor Day is your season. East Long island gets a little bit of a hit in fall. So the first few years I stayed open in the winter and it was a very similar ball kicking experience where it was, where it was like I was trying to keep my staff, but it was just like, you know, tumbleweeds blowing through the street and you're just doing, you know, it's me working three stations and, you know, one server, one bartender, like, you know, just bare, bare minimums. So the third year in 2004, we just about the time we hit profitability, we had not paid back the initial, but.

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Mark Mittleman [00:06:52]:

But real estate went up beautifully. I decided I was going to close for the winter. And I had a friend living in Los Angeles who worked for this private club in Westwood, and he was an artist. So thus he had to have a job. So he was working for this private club. I came out, stayed with him, met his chef, showed him my work, and I was like, I'm going to close for the winter and just move to Los Angeles for the winter and then come back and open in the spring. While I was shutting down the restaurant, it was right after Thanksgiving, someone knocked on the door and said, you want to sell this? And I said, yes. So instead of moving for the winter, I've been here ever since.

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Mark Mittleman [00:07:31]:

I got a job running the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. First five star, first hotel experience. Ever definitely sell the executive Chef on that one. And it's a huge pay cut. But it was an amazing experience. I was running, like, it's an iconic place in space. And that's so cool. Just really, really incredible.

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Mark Mittleman [00:07:53]:

And that was my journey to beginning getting out to L. A. Wow.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:57]:

When you sold the business, you sold the business and the property. You just sold the business.

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Mark Mittleman [00:08:02]:

Everything, everything, everything. At that point, that was the only way to, like, recoup the losses was, was, was to set. Was tough in the end. It was like, mildly profitable. But. But the real profit was the experience, right? And the learning and, you know, even from consulting. And I've opened a bunch of places myself since then. Even when I consult, sometimes learning what not to do is.

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Mark Mittleman [00:08:24]:

Is like, Is like an amazing lesson. And to see people fuck up and to like, gain that knowledge, help them fix it, teaches you things not to do.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:33]:

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I have. I'll joke around. Like, I have a laundry list of things not to do when. When building a tech. Tech company. I learned the hard way, so totally get it.

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Mark Mittleman [00:08:44]:

That's.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:45]:

That's awesome. And so, and so then you ended up in la. Like, first, first question for you is at that time, like, what was the most notable difference that you noticed from maybe the restaurant scene in New York?

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Mark Mittleman [00:08:57]:

My first week on the line. That was one of the. I've only missed two Christmases with my family. And it was the week I moved to LA. I moved December 14th, and I was working in the hotel. Hotel's 24 7, 365. They were like, your new guy in. You're working Christmas.

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Mark Mittleman [00:09:14]:

Miss that one. So, and then Covid, first week working at the hotel, middle of the lunch rush, the Garden Margin Chef said, I'm taking my break. And I said, taking your break? I go, I'll give you a break. I'll break your arm or break your neck, I'll break your legs. You're not leaving the fucking line. We're in the rush. And then HR calls me and says, so New York at that time, labor law was real. It existed, but no one really gave a shit.

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Mark Mittleman [00:09:45]:

And it wasn't followed the same like we, we would put you in the dumpster. Like. Like you. Like, I need, I need. I need a break. Like where you take your. Take your break before you take a bowl and you eat at the line and then you get back and you get back to work. Like, so that was a crazy experience.

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Mark Mittleman [00:10:02]:

Just experiencing like, actual following of. Of labor.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:07]:

Like, what was that call? Like, when HR Called you like, who is this?

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Mark Mittleman [00:10:10]:

Yeah, I mean, they're the ones that hired me. So I knew, you know, it was. That was an interesting experience as well. But I was like, oh, it's like, you know, I. This is not something that we really dealt with where I'm from. Like, we. And if, you know, then I started to play the game, like, you know, scheduling their breaks and, you know, learn the rules and, you know, take it to the edge, break it and then fix it. Got it, Got it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:33]:

That makes sense. Okay, so that was life after that. So you start, you start off there. Sounds like obviously getting some, some experience and learning maybe some more corporate style, you know, lessons that maybe were different when you owned your own place. What did life look like after that?

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Mark Mittleman [00:10:48]:

So I left the hotel and I started, helped open a restaurant on Melrose Place, which definitely holds a 90s reference. And LA Cieneca, big, big space. It was called Republic, not to be confused with Republique. That's open now, was there for several years, helped them open a place in the Valley. Then I started doing a little bit of consulting. That was around the time I started consult. It was. I started Entangled Particles.

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Mark Mittleman [00:11:13]:

I was just doing a dba and that was like the beginning of sort of putting my feet into the pool, dipping my toes in the pool for consulting. A little bit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:22]:

Interesting.

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Mark Mittleman [00:11:22]:

Next real gig was I was working with another hotel. First executive committee position in a hotel that was the Joie de Vivre group, which was an amazing group. It was very employee focused, kind of hard as management, but also an interesting experience. I mean, everything is lessons, everything is experiences. Then I really sort of after that, that hotel, it was right around the crash, 2007, 2008.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:50]:

Okay.

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Mark Mittleman [00:11:51]:

And I was like, ah, this is not going to last that long. I'll just. I'll just, you know, start my own thing. And then it obviously was. Was a huge economic meltdown. Don't take financial advice from me. And that's when I really started to do a lot more consulting still before Tangled Particles, but really started to dive into a little bit and apply all those lessons from all these places that I've opened my own and like really helping owners create successful businesses. One of the things I did during that time is still going strong, called Leo and Lily in the Valley.

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Mark Mittleman [00:12:26]:

That was after that I helped start a restaurant group in Santa Monica.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:30]:

Okay.

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Mark Mittleman [00:12:30]:

That was really partnered up with somebody. Started with one, then it was very aggressive, then another one, then another one. That started as a consult. He had a little diner. I Consulted for him, and he was like, would you ever want to partner up? And I said no for a long time until he showed me a space that I was like, okay, let's do this. Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:54]:

And are you still a partner in that? That.

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Mark Mittleman [00:12:56]:

No. We split after that. I opened a place again. All these pepper between all these different experiences, I always sort of dip. Dip the toe back into, like, taking a project. Taking a project before. It's almost like a detox, because restaurant operation in life is so taxing and stressful. But I found what I really, really love is creation.

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Mark Mittleman [00:13:19]:

Openings. Those are some of my favorite, favorite things. So I can really get something, you know, mold the clay and create something that. So I really enjoy it. I opened a Mexican restaurant. Another partner. We won a bib from Michelin.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:33]:

Oh, nice.

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Mark Mittleman [00:13:34]:

Yeah. It was also a bittersweet. The. The. We had to shutter the building leaked like a sieve, and. And we shuddered. And the month after we shuttered, we won. We won the award.

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Mark Mittleman [00:13:47]:

Wow. Yeah. You never know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:49]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:13:52]:

Crazy. Then that was another time to consult again. After that, I worked with a good buddy of mine that I had met throughout. The original chef of Bar Tartine. And I moved to Big Sur for about six months. And that was definitely like moving to another planet. An incredible experience to help him build that property out. I remember that phone call.

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Mark Mittleman [00:14:17]:

Well, it just shut at the restaurant. And he called me. He's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I got time. He's like, I need an adult in the room. Can you come to Big Sur? And I was like, never been to Big Sur. Let me. Let me come. And I went up there for two days, and I was like, okay, went back down, grabbed my dog, went back up.

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Mark Mittleman [00:14:34]:

And that was. That was. It was amazing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:36]:

That's awesome. And so. And so throughout all these years, right, obviously, you. You've had many moments, like you mentioned, many lessons. What were some, like, defining, aha, Mom. That you've had that kind of shaped your approach to, you know, your consulting business.

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Mark Mittleman [00:14:51]:

It's a team sport, like I said, you know, in the beginning. It's. It's all connected. So if, you know, if you have a weak link, that's going to be your bottleneck. That's going to be your weakest point. So that. That could be the dishwasher, that could be the host. That could be ownership.

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Mark Mittleman [00:15:06]:

That could be any part of the chain. That could be. That maybe needs some working on to make it, you know, a strong, strong, strong group.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:13]:

And how would you say, like, you know, again, I always try to get tactical because there's so many restaurant operators listing. And so we're always trying to share some advice and real, real world experience. And so what were some ways you, you kind of go about or maybe can give people some advice on how to identify these weak points.

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Mark Mittleman [00:15:30]:

I mean, I think relationships are extremely important when it comes to staff that the, I think there needs to be separation as well. You need to trust your managers and follow chain of command. I think it's really important. But you can identify things and then go to managers and have them do it. I think that if you, if you break that chain, you're opening yourself up to some liabilities and you're also opening yourself up to some possible weakening of the strength of those, those managers. Numbers don't lie. I think you can really analyze and find things out that way. Can use it.

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Mark Mittleman [00:16:01]:

You can use AI now we have more tools in the toolbox. A lot of different tech out there now that can really help you to see things. There is a time of analysis paralysis, the stock market term where you can, we can go too far. There is some sort of a magic formula. But we're now, we're in a place where, especially where, where, where, where I live, where labor is extremely high. So you have to figure out how to, how to make this work with less.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:28]:

Right.

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Mark Mittleman [00:16:29]:

You know, there's unintended consequences. So you, they might be like, okay, fast food workers, we're going to make 20 bucks an hour. Okay, let's put a machine outside so we don't have to work it out. You know, like, like you're going to have to, you're going to, you're going to have to figure out how to make things work. I understand and I'm not opposed to obviously, maybe not obviously for people to make a living wage. It's important. But at the same time this is, as my father say, this is, this is. No one's in the production business.

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Mark Mittleman [00:16:54]:

Everyone's in the make money business. So we're not doing this for charity. We're doing this so we can earn a living and we can feed our families and take care of our. I want to take care of my staff, but I also want to take care of my blood, my family. So the, it's. How do you make all things work? Yeah, you know, imagine the magic formula is you got to be 15, 20%. You're now like to hit 20 is really hard. But with the legitimate world that we live in, that's kind of the magic number and you really need to have that buffer.

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Mark Mittleman [00:17:25]:

So you're talking about, you know, low 20s for labor, mid, mid, you know, mid-20s for, for food and beverage combined. Like, these are hard things to hit. This is for, this isn't like, this isn't steakhouse numbers. Your margins, your margins are different. Your costs are different. I'm talking like mom, mom and pop stuff. But it's hard to do. So you have to figure out where, where, how to make these things work.

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Mark Mittleman [00:17:46]:

That could be deals with vendors, that could be, how am I, how am I staggering in staff? How am I analyzing my salaries? How am I, you know, sometimes I go to places, I'm like, why do you have four people on salary? You're already behind the eight ball. Like, who did this?

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:04]:

It makes sense. And the whole kind of minimum wage thing, it makes you think because like, you're absolutely right. Right. It's, it's, you can only pass so much onto consumer. Right. A consumer is only going to spend so much on a hamburger. And maybe it used to be $8 and now it's 10 and now it's 12. At a certain point, people are going to spend $30 on a hamburger.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:20]:

I mean, unless a gourmet burger. But you get the idea. And so, you know, the, the, the analogies I, I've heard said, which makes sense is like, if you have three people at McDonald's, the minimum wage, the minimum wage goes up, guess what happens now you got two people.

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Mark Mittleman [00:18:35]:

So, so did you help? Like, is it, you know, I don't know. Again, unintended consequences. It's hard to. What are the metrics and what are the goals? So I think, I think full employment is the goal.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:48]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:18:48]:

In that scenario that people making a minimum. A wage.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:51]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:18:51]:

You know, this, this is, this is an old question to ask all the time too. It's, you know, tip pooling versus them keeping their tips. You know, I'm doing an opening right now and that the battle exists. Like when, when a server says to me, my tips, I get trig. You wouldn't believe. Like, I'm like, they're, they are not your tips. Like, yes, you are customer facing, but you can't do it without the host, you can't do it without the bartender. You can't do it about the bus here.

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Mark Mittleman [00:19:20]:

You can't do without the expo, you can't do about the cooks. Again, a team sport. So that sort of me triggers me at the same time. The other, the other side of me on the capitalist side is like the weak will be eaten. And the stronger servers should. Should get the stronger sections, and they should. They should be able to make money. Me.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:37]:

That's interesting. What's. And what's. What's your take on that? Because that is a hot topic. Not to go too much into that, but, like, where do you typically stay? And I guess depends on the type of restaurant and whatnot. But, you know, from your experience, what. What have. What do you usually lean towards in terms of your tipping? I guess strategy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:52]:

Because. Because it is a good topic.

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Mark Mittleman [00:19:53]:

I'm dealing with it right now. And to be honest, I'm. I'm still at a crossroads with it. My instincts are to make it equitable and do pooling. I don't want to lose strong staff because we're doing a pool. I heard. I heard one of the team members the other day overheard her say, you know, I don't want other people's money. I want my money.

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Mark Mittleman [00:20:10]:

You know, that again, not really the mentality of teamwork that. That I'm looking for. But at the same time, there was a team member who's not as strong as her on the floor, who had a bunch of two tops, and she had eights and sixes, and she was. She was pulling different weight.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:28]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:20:29]:

So, you know, it is a tough question. My friend says, you know, we may want everything to be equitable, but human instinct is human instinct. You know, they want there. So I honestly, I'm going to have to let you open because I'm gonna have to close. No, I'm gonna have to close it this week. The tips are gonna have to be paid out by Friday, so I have to just. I have to take care of it. There's some great stuff out there for tips now, too.

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Mark Mittleman [00:20:53]:

Technology that you can use. And again, just, you know, always just better, better, better, better, better. Iteration, iteration, iteration. That's the culinary side.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:03]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:21:03]:

Like, the culinary side by background from the kitchen is like, it's not done yet. It's not done yet. It's not done yet. And even. Even if it's on the menu, you could still have, like. Yeah, you're still tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:13]:

And listen, there's always going to be someone complaining. It'll never be perfect. But the idea is to, like, try to make it as good as possible. I've seen. I've seen some people do some. Again, it depends on the type of restaurant, this and that. But I have a buddy who had, like, a pretty good way of doing it. He.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:26]:

It was basically a Tip pool, obviously, depending on the role, the percentages were slightly different. So, you know, half a percent versus 1% versus 2%, whatever. Then he would also factor in, which I thought was kind of smart, for more the front of house, he would factor in, like, the average check size. So that way, at least you're motivated to think about it. Because it is true that if I'm a waiter and I'm upselling or recommending and, oh, this pairs well and my average check size is higher. Like, I don't want to be punished for, you know, to your point, someone else. So. But again, it's not a science, but it's more of an art.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:57]:

Right. There is obviously some math behind it, but you're dealing with real humans with real feelings and so trying to figure out how to balance it. Because the last thing you want as well is staff turnover. In an industry that, you know, staff turnover is expensive. Right, Right.

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Mark Mittleman [00:22:11]:

Extremely expensive. Extremely. It's, it's, you know, you're. And you only get, you know, that one chance to make that first impression. You have one chance with an opening staff.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:21]:

Right.

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Mark Mittleman [00:22:22]:

To train everybody together and to create that team. And then as you start peppering other people, they're never going to deal. They're never going to have that experience at the beginning with a menu matrix and doing, tasting every single dish. That's never going to happen for the other staff that folds in.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:37]:

Right.

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Mark Mittleman [00:22:37]:

Never going to happen.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:22:38]:

Right. Right.

‍

Mark Mittleman [00:22:38]:

No, it's a game.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:22:39]:

Yeah. It's. It's super interesting. And like, I'm curious to see, like, like, you know, if we fast forward to, let's say, today. Right. Like, you obviously had a ton of experience on the culinary side, on the operational side, throughout all your different gigs from, you know, regular mom and pop places to Michelin star to hotels, you're kind of getting all this experience. And then now if we fast forward to today with entangled particles, you decide to open your own thing. Let's talk a bit about that.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:23:05]:

I know you were consulting for a while, right. You mentioned 2007. But, like, what inspired entangled particles specifically? And let's talk a bit about that, that side of it.

‍

Mark Mittleman [00:23:15]:

So I've had a lot of starts and stops with the tangled particles always existed since 2014.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:23:21]:

Okay.

‍

Mark Mittleman [00:23:22]:

And I've always picked up clients here and there, mostly by referral because I've had so much success that people are just like, call Mark.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:23:29]:

Right.

‍

Mark Mittleman [00:23:29]:

So that happens. I've had gigs in between there as well that I've taken on at the same time. Sometimes, you know, the cost of it's just not incentivized to, to healthcare specifically. And so I feed that through my company. It's a less expensive to have somebody else pay for it. So sometimes I pick up some other gigs. I took a role as a culinary director in CPG for more experience. I'd never done anything like that before in my life.

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Mark Mittleman [00:23:55]:

It was a plant based chicken company called Daring. Yeah, I learned how to do food. Never did any of this stuff my entire life. I did food shows. I learned how to make frozen meals for them. I went to the factory in Wisconsin to see how the production was done. Of learning all these different things. I love to.

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Mark Mittleman [00:24:11]:

You tell take and learn and learn and learn. That's the goal every day. So that applied to different things too. Even, even hospitality. My love and my heart is always going, going back to hospitality. And even during that time I opened a Greek restaurant. When I was with them, I opened, I'm opening places, opening places, opening places. That was actually a refresh.

‍

Mark Mittleman [00:24:29]:

That was a, it was a concept before that failed. The owner was Greek and it was always his dream to open a Greek restaurant. And so we're like, okay, so it was six weeks. That was, that was, that was the gauntlet.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:41]:

No. So it's super interesting that, that, that you're also in cpg. It's interesting to see like the, the world and so like for people listening in, I guess first, first question that comes to mind is they might need some help. Where, where do you find you do best? Like what excites you? So for our listeners, we have a lot of restaurant listeners. If they're looking for some help, what type of problems are they facing where like you're the guy they should call.

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Mark Mittleman [00:25:04]:

So I have Italian background, so soup to nuts is what I like to say. That was the, that's how we used to eat every meal. You start with the soup, you end with the nuts. So my background is, as you mentioned, is pretty much both sides of the ball at this point. So if you're having issues in the kitchen, even in startup kitchen design, you need recipe tweaking, you're having a culture issue, you're having a hiring, stamping issue, any of those things, same thing for the price front starting, operational fixing, hiring. I have a lot of contacts in recruiting that I can connect with. It's a connector. But I can also be, you know, boots on the ground and be there to really see.

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Mark Mittleman [00:25:44]:

I love a secret shop. I love to see what I can see. For me, I mean, I See it like the matrix. I see the code falling from the sky. I can identify, you know, things that maybe you even don't see. But on the profitability side, it's where I really shine to try to get you to tweak out a little bit more. And on the build outside, like I mentioned on the opening to try to build you a successful Lamborghini, basically, if you want to paint giraffes on the side of it, that's your choice. But I'm going to give you a working, functional business.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:15]:

And what are some maybe typical things you see people go wrong. Right. Like you've been part of so many restaurant openings. You've consulted a lot. You've you been on the ground. So you know, maybe again I think a lot of you learn from like what not to do. So like what are some things that you see people make mistakes when maybe opening their first restaurant.

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Mark Mittleman [00:26:37]:

Everybody underestimates their costs. Whatever. Everybody, everybody. So whatever you think it is, double it is a good rule of thumb. Maybe more than that. I've seen, you know the one, the project that I just am finishing up now was, you know, a quarter of what they estimated, a quarter of what the cost was going to be. So they were definitely way over budget. That's something I think everybody should take a lesson from.

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Mark Mittleman [00:27:02]:

And you should make sure you have more than what you need in the bank and be prepared for delays. That's again extremely, extremely common. There are people out there that can help. There's also just sometimes delays. Change of use on a building is a very dangerous thing to play with. That's another recommendation I would try to avoid. An existing space would be much better suited. I have seen many spaces that.

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Mark Mittleman [00:27:27]:

But it's like that would be a great restaurant but no way I'm going to deal with that. You're talking it can be anywhere from 6 to 18 months to get a change of view easily.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:38]:

Yeah. And then permits and stuff.

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Mark Mittleman [00:27:40]:

I hear before you put a nail in the wall. These are rough things. Construction is another thing that I love to handle and manage and do that stuff too. It's. It's doing so many openings. You learn all these little, little tricks and tricks. That's one again we I touched on a little while ago like be really conscious of labor and thinking about what the bigger picture looks like. You may be like I can save a lot of money if I just salary that when it's 50 hours.

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Mark Mittleman [00:28:04]:

But if you're top heavy and you have 200k in salaries, you're already Putting yourself now your labor needs to be even lower than what I mentioned before because you're starting negative. So then how are you going to do line level staffing to make sure you're at the levels that you need to take care of your guests at the end of the day? That's really the bottom line of everything is guests.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:29]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:28:30]:

So making sure they're taken care of, they have a great experience and this becomes, you know, their spot. It used to be they were in the menu drawer growing up. We used to have the menu drawer. We don't have those anymore. But you had that regular spot that everyone has in their, in their rotation and that's what you need to be.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:44]:

That makes sense. And just quickly speaking on profitability. Right. I know there's obviously a million and one things that you can do in a restaurant to, you know, increase profitability. At Wisk, we focus a lot on the cost of goods side. So the food and beverage purchases and invent inventory and wastage and all that, you know, labor is obviously another big part because that's, that makes your prime cost. But I'm curious from your perspective, like what are, what are the typical kind of things that you see? I know it depends on the type of place and, and whatnot. But in general there's certain kind of wins that you can get out of the way in terms of ways to increase profitability.

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Mark Mittleman [00:29:20]:

Well, your technology is an amazing thing that, that you can use and there's, there's other competition out there obviously. But I think that there you really need to dive and really use the technology that's around you because we're not in the time anymore where you have to hand, you know, I started it was hand tickets before pos. Right. Call those server server and be like what does it say? Like we're now in a time where this everything is so interconnected and you can connect to the POS and you can have integration and you can use all these tools to get live data and really see inventory is extremely important. A lot of people skip inventory. I'm a weekly guy. Other people are monthly, I think weeklies for sure. Forecast your labor.

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Mark Mittleman [00:30:06]:

Use tools for labor. There are now 8 million scheduling apps. A lot of them are integrated. You need to forecast so that if the integration, if you're integrated with the pos, it'll self populate your forecast for the following week and you can really start to control. So at the end of the day really it's about controlling and seeing when you're getting down to sort of this profitability and costing area, sometimes you just could be playing on the edges. You could be talking about linen, you could be talking about a half a point here. And point. It all adds up.

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Mark Mittleman [00:30:35]:

So targets are important and sticking to those targets. Sometimes data changes. You maybe have to be flexible, but you need to see where there's opportunity and then attack and then see like wastage is a great example too. I think a lot of people aren't as conscious of waste and understanding. I mean, this is a huge cost.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:56]:

Huge. Yeah. And especially when it's not their money, they don't factor it in because it's, it becomes almost different when, when it's just food or produce. Right. Like to the end user, but like to an owner, you're like, that's cash. That's cash you're throwing in the garbage because you over ordered or you're not portioning.

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Mark Mittleman [00:31:12]:

Right. Or debt. Inventory is a great example too. So people will order, they'll be like, Well, I got 10 cases for this because I got one free. Like you just. That money is now sitting there instead of being cash flow and you just, you, you know, that's. No, no. It's the oldest li liquor rep trick in the book.

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Mark Mittleman [00:31:30]:

It's like, I'll give you, I'll give you one case if you buy 10. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:36]:

Yeah, we see that as a common one on the liquor side. And there's very rare times where it could make sense if the discount's there and if you're already buying six cases and it's like two more, get like there's cases. But I'm with you. I'm with you. A lot of people fall for that trap where it's like, it makes no sense. I remember one of the funny moments I remember was in the early days of WISK, client had so much blue Curacao. I'm like, you bet. Like, what do you sell with Lucas out? You're like a high end cocktail.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:01]:

You barely sell this. He's like, yeah, but you know, they gave me a case deal. I. I'm like, how long has it been here? He's like, yeah, it's been here for like 18 months. I'm like, there you go. Like you say $2 a case and it's sitting on your shelf for like two days.

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Mark Mittleman [00:32:13]:

Yeah, that's your money. That's your money there. Obviously there's examples. The volume is there. It's your. Well, there could be, there could be things with it, with it, with good examples, but just A lot of time it's like, do the analysis. Exactly how much of this am I selling? How much am I selling this week? In a week?

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:28]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:32:28]:

How long is it going to take me to sell this product? Exactly. If the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:33]:

Exactly.

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Mark Mittleman [00:32:34]:

Don't squeeze.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:35]:

Exactly.

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Mark Mittleman [00:32:35]:

You know, like, this doesn't make any sense. And I see it on the food side too. I'll see chefs, like, you know, oh, I want to. I want to have like an office. Like, no, you need to have. So I ordered three cases. So now I have, you know, three cases of tomatoes in the back that I'm. That's gonna.

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Mark Mittleman [00:32:49]:

I don't need them. So that I don't order tomatoes for two weeks. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't compute. So you have to be conscious of all those things. I think that's a great example to go. When I talk to owners or operators or chefs, general managers, really, like, again, seeing the bigger picture and how it's all connected, a lot of times they don't see it. I'm talking more of the line level and management side, how it's all connected and how that affects cash flow and why the owner's getting more gray hair and why it's not really working properly and understanding how that all operates. An example I gave before is the.

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Mark Mittleman [00:33:29]:

The about tips. I working with a company that, that pushes out the tips and to debit. So I found out this past week, they were like, oh, if you pay. If we push out tips on Friday, they pay and then they pull the money on Monday. And I was like, perfect. So now, so everyone's getting paid on Friday. You're getting your tips on Friday. So now that gives them a float now to get the tip money so they don't have to worry about.

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Mark Mittleman [00:33:51]:

Because that's going to hit on Monday, all the business for the weekend, and then they don't have to worry about the cash flow. So that's. It's these little, little tiny tricks and things you find out, you know, you figure out the moves, like WISKs, like finding out, you know, how you can utilize the tools to your advantage and then see where you can, at the end of the day, make money. Make money, make money.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:10]:

Yep. No, you're absolutely right. And then, you know, I know we're coming out on time, but I had one more. I had to ask you just because a lot of consulting experience, a lot of, you know, back of the house experience, too. I mean, I know front of the house as well and construction, but one Thing I came to mind because I'm a little less familiar, but I'm curious, how do you approach, let's say, rebuilding maybe kitchen layouts or back of house workflows? Because. Because you came from that world specifically. I'm sure there's a lot that goes into that maybe first time operators don't think of in terms of the operational side of like, how do we make the most of this space and how do we make it make operational sense? Right. The kind of like McDonald's idea.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:46]:

How do you kind of create the most optimal. So I'd love to hear.

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Mark Mittleman [00:34:49]:

Yeah, so that's what I was going to say that the, the movie with Michael Keaton went on McDonald's. I don't know if you saw it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:55]:

Yeah, yeah. So I don't want to go see.

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Mark Mittleman [00:34:58]:

When they go to the tennis court and they lay it out. So that's basically what we do. So we're going to pantomime the whole venue and we're going to say, okay, the guy goes over here, then he goes over here, and then how does it go over there? And then what is this? Every inch of space should be accounted for. Don't tell the health department, but after plan check, I'm adding more. And we're going to space it out and really use every inch to make it as operational feasible as possible. I, I really don't like staff to move much. The amount of steps makes a difference. One of my lines is seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, and that's all gonna like expand out.

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Mark Mittleman [00:35:36]:

So connected. And that's going to affect the guest experience. So if I could just have them basically go like this, like, I don't want. Everything should be on your station, Everything should be there. If you need something from the walk in, you call it out. I need more romaine. The guy who gets the romaine. You stay here.

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Mark Mittleman [00:35:50]:

The only time you should leave is to use the restroom. So. Or if you're on break, this really be, you know, just. It's a dance, you know, and how does everything operate? And really that's the game. So designing for efficiency, because that stuff will help the staff. The staff will have a better ergonomic work experience. It's a nice environment to work in. Secondly, it's going to make for efficiencies for your business.

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Mark Mittleman [00:36:14]:

Thirdly, it's going to create a better guest experience because hopefully food's going to come out faster.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:18]:

I love that. I love that. My last question for you is an important one, right? All these changes only work if they're implementing. Implemented. So I'm curious to know what's your approach to actually getting the buy in when you're kind of implementing some of these operational changes? Like how do you go about that?

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Mark Mittleman [00:36:35]:

So it depends on the, it depends on the gig. So if it's, if it's a. Like I'm going into an operational restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:42]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:36:42]:

First thing we have to do is build trust. So that's going to take a little bit of time. So that means it's going to be analysis for like three to four weeks where I'm just going to work with them. There may be a little tweaking here and there, but no sudden moves. Basically.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:57]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:36:57]:

We're starting with a. Just building that trust. Like this guy's okay.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:02]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:37:02]:

He's not a piece of shit. Like he knows what he's talking, he knows what he's talking about. He's not going to fire everybody. Like he's, you know, it's like, like the two Bobs in Office Space. Like it's not going to be like, tell me what you do with your, tell me about your day. Like it's not really building that. The opening or a refresh where you're starting with a new team or a new concept. It's buy in from the beginning.

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Mark Mittleman [00:37:24]:

You have to get everybody to just sing the same tune and understand. And part of that is ownership too. So they have to be understand. Like, this is, this is the way.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:33]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:37:33]:

You know, this is 28 years of operational experience from dishwasher to executive to director positions. Maybe I know what I'm talking about again. I love to learn. I love it when the dishwasher gives me a great idea and I'm like, that's a great idea. Let's do that. Like, I'm not the end all be all. You should never feel that way way. You should always be willing to learn.

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Mark Mittleman [00:37:54]:

You should always be willing to listen. But I think it really is about what the business needs, what the staff needs. I'm very big on culture.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:01]:

Yeah.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:02]:

And to make them successful, that's going to make the business successful.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:06]:

I love that. And so for people listening in that are intrigued and they want to learn more, maybe work with you, I want to give you a chance to just kind of plug away. So where can they find you? Where can they find Mark? Where can they find more about entangled particles? Like, like just feel free to plug away and, and we'll definitely link it in this episode too.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:22]:

Entangled particles Co Co. Co is the website we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, and if you want to find me personally, it's. Chef Mark. Is. That's all you don't. That's. We don't know what happens after is. We don't know what I am yet.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:38]:

But Chef Marquez.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:39]:

Chef Marquez. I love it.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:41]:

Yes. It's very Zed.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:43]:

Yeah, he just is.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:43]:

I am.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:44]:

Right?

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:44]:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's. This. Yes.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:47]:

Ah, that's cool.

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Mark Mittleman [00:38:48]:

That's awesome.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:49]:

That's awesome. Well, listen, Mark, honestly, a lot of you dropped a lot of knowledge here. I could tell. Obviously, you've been in the industry for a while, because you know what you're talking about, and I think our listeners will appreciate that and listen to our WISKing at all listeners. Hopefully this is of episode number one was helpful. Hopefully you're able to gain some knowledge. And if you're looking for help with any of the areas that Mark mentioned, please don't be shy to reach out. That's why we do this.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:09]:

We do this to kind of help people, you know? You know, help people, help other people. So hopefully this really helps everyone listening in. And Mark, Mark, thank you for joining the WISKing et Al podcast. It was a pleasure having you on.

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Mark Mittleman [00:39:21]:

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed Angelo.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:23]:

This is great. If you want to learn more about WISK, head to WISK AI and book a demo.

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