From CPA to Michelin Stars: Leadership Lessons with Ignacio Garcia-Menocal

In this episode of Restaurant Leaders Unplugged, Ignacio Garcia-Menocal, Co-Founder and CEO of World Bay Hospitality Group, shares his remarkable journey from a CPA to leading a Michelin-starred restaurant group. Discover how he balances core values, innovation, and trust to build successful concepts like Stubborn Seed and navigate challenges in the restaurant industry. Ignacio dives into leadership strategies, scaling businesses, and the importance of branding and financial health for restaurateurs. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting, this episode is packed with actionable insights for restaurant leaders.

Connect with our guest:
📚 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-garcia-menocal-71aa5814/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iggygarciamenocal/
🌐 Website: https://www.grovebaygroup.com

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Transcript

(0:00 - 0:13)

Core values really aren't just when times are good. I mean, core values really matter when things are tough and that's really shows who you are when things are tough. So we went ahead and paid everybody to stay home at the risk of not knowing whether we had enough money to reopen.

(0:13 - 0:23)

Right. But at the time that was the right thing to do. He and I always joke, my partner and I, that that was the worst financial decision we ever made, but that was the right moral decision, but it was the right moral decision.

(0:23 - 0:49)

And, you know, we would do it again because we need to, as leaders, one of the most important things of being a leader is that if you say something, you better back it up and what you do better match what you say. Welcome to the Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast, where real talks with restaurant leaders take center stage. Discover the challenges and victories that define success in the culinary world, dive into essential strategies from marketing to operations and gain insights that will transform your approach to your restaurant business.

(0:49 - 0:57)

Don't just keep up, lead the way. Join me, your host, Sebastian Stahl on this journey to excellence. Welcome to the Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast.

(0:57 - 1:12)

We're really excited to welcome Ignacio Garcia-Menorcal. He's co-founder and CEO of World Bay Hospitality Group. You know, World Bay has earned a lot of accolades, Michelin star recognitions, and been named one of the top 25 innovative multi-concept restaurant groups in the US.

(1:13 - 1:17)

So Ignacio, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Hi, Sebastian.

(1:17 - 1:20)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right, man.

(1:20 - 1:28)

So Ignacio, take us back when you first started. What got you into the restaurant industry? We can just hear a little bit of your journey. Yeah.

(1:28 - 1:38)

So my background into the restaurant industry is a little unusual to most operators. I'm actually a CPA by trade. I studied accounting in college.

(1:38 - 1:48)

And then I started my career with one of the big six at the time. Now they're the big four, but with Deloitte and Touche. And that really gave me a great background in business.

(1:48 - 2:04)

I got to see a lot of different industries, a lot of different clients. So that really gave me such a big, big background in business and also working for a big company like Deloitte. They have such a great reputation in terms of how to build professionals, so much training, so many procedures.

(2:05 - 2:15)

So you really leave there, you know, becoming a full professional. You can apply to really anything. So from there, I went to MasterCard and I was the director of finance for Latin America.

(2:15 - 2:39)

And I was there for a year and my entrance into the restaurant industry was really completely random. When I was at MasterCard, I got a call from a colleague of mine from Deloitte, Ray, and he calls me out of the blue and he says, Hey, the Shula family is looking for a CFO. Is this something that you would be interested in? And he sort of caught me off guard and I said, Ray, I don't know anything about the restaurant industry other than I like eating and drinking.

(2:39 - 2:45)

I've only been here a year. I don't like jumping around. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

(2:45 - 3:05)

I get home that night and Dave Shula, Don Shula's oldest son, for those that remember the eighties, Dave Shula coached under his father with the Dolphins and then he coached under Jimmy Johnson for the Cowboys and then he coached the Bengals for a few years. And then after that, he left to run the family business. So I grew up watching Dave Shula and obviously Don Shula.

(3:05 - 3:14)

So when I get a call from Dave Shula out of the blue, asking me to go meet with his dad and I, I said, sure. You know, you can't say no. So I took the meeting.

(3:14 - 3:35)

I showed up at their office and there was Don Shula and the Hall of Fame jackets were, you know, hanging from the walls and the Superbowl trophies, and it took me about two seconds to say, yes, I'll take the job, being a locally born kid, you know, the Dolphins are a big deal for me. And so was Don Shula. So I was very excited for the opportunity, but once I got into it, I realized, Hey, I don't know anything about the restaurant industry.

(3:35 - 3:46)

So I did everything I could to learn everything about it. I seminars, webinars, conferences, books, podcasts. I mean, I did everything I could to learn everything about the restaurant industry.

(3:47 - 3:59)

And once I got into it, I really realized that my passion, which is experiencing new cuisines and eating and drinking and traveling, and now my work were kind of the same thing. So I felt very blessed, but that was my interest into the industry. Wow.

(4:00 - 4:09)

Well, that's a definitely an interesting story. And I just, so of course, Shula has been around for a while. And we had actually have some friends in common that you guys worked together with, with this great person also.

(4:09 - 4:36)

So after your time in Shula, so how did you transition into what you guys do now into actually founding Negro Bay Hospitality? How did that come about? So our first restaurant was actually a Shula's franchise. So I was at the company for five years with Shula's and then Coach Shula allowed me to do my own franchise, basically, which was the Shula's 347 Grill across from Sunset Place in the Miami area. So that was our first restaurant.

(4:36 - 5:05)

It was a franchise, but that really helped us because it's really different being on the corporate side than really operating yourself, right? So that was a great experience. I think we would have had a much harder time building our own brand from scratch, you know, being in the first restaurant. Whereas when you do a franchise, a lot of it is just giving to you, right? It's already true and tried processes and recipes and systems.

(5:05 - 5:17)

And then at that point, they already had a brand. So it wasn't like you were starting from scratch in terms of name recognition. So for us, I felt that that was a great entry into the operating world within our industry.

(5:18 - 5:31)

So we had the restaurant for 10 years. And then when the franchise agreement ended, by that point, we had already opened a bunch of different restaurants. And at that point we had already become a little more sophisticated and we're creating our own brands and doing our own thing.

(5:31 - 5:41)

So, and that's where Eating the Butcher is today, one of the restaurants in the Michelin Guide. So we turned a franchise restaurants for 10 years into our own concept that ended up making it to the Michelin Guide. Wow.

(5:41 - 5:48)

That's a pretty amazing story, man. And unique because usually people kind of starting in the industry very early, but you just kind of jumped into doing something like that. It's so cool.

(5:48 - 6:00)

And for sure, having the systems in place and everything for a franchise, you were able to kind of just have this view of how things are run, right? Because definitely as an operator, the corporate and operators are, it's just completely different things. Yeah. Yeah.

(6:00 - 6:14)

I can't imagine starting from scratch, like I said, with zero, with no SOPs and no recipes, no brand, no marketing, nothing, just starting from scratch. I mean, I can, for those that do it every day in our industry, my head off to them, very, very difficult. No, definitely.

(6:15 - 7:06)

So many restaurant owners struggle to stay ahead of trends. And I know you guys have opened quite a few concepts and it's really not easy how to replicate success when you're opening different brands and different concepts, how did you guys go about doing all of these things? Like what do you think has been key to your success in your different concepts that you guys have opened? The key, so what we specialize in is doing these celebrity chef partnerships, right? And I think the key is that we've developed a good reputation in our industry and it's all based on trust, right? So in these, in these partnerships, so take, you know, Jeremy Ford, our partnership with him at Sovereign Seed, and it's based on the trust that we trust him, that he's going to come up with the best recipes and we let him do his thing, we don't get involved. And he allows us and he trusts us to do what we do best, which is operating the restaurant.

(7:07 - 7:26)

So that synergy of coming into this with no ego and with a lot of humility saying, Hey, when I can be able to do the recipes that Jeremy can do, let him do whatever, we don't get involved, let him do whatever he does. And by the same token, he knows that operating is not his forte, right? Like the back office stuff. And he's a creative mind.

(7:26 - 7:49)

So he trusts us to, you know, handle that. So I think it's been the key coming into these relationships with humility and with trust in the other person that they can do what they do best. So how do you guys balance? Cause of course, when you're working with celebrity chefs and people like this and they're going to get creative, right? And they're going to do their thing, especially now with the current scenario in the industry with high food costs and labor costs and all that stuff.

(7:49 - 8:11)

How do you guys balance creativity with execution and keeping costs at bay? Yeah, a lot of conversations. It's not easy. It's not easy because chefs by default are going to want to use the best ingredients, the freshest ingredients, the most expensive ingredients, right? But that can lead to very high food costs.

(8:11 - 8:37)

So that's not always the answer, but the lowest food cost is not always the answer either, right? It has to be somewhere in the middle because you want the best possible guest experience, but at a food cost that still meets the budget, et cetera. So when we opened, you know, going back to Supper Seat, which is our Michelin star restaurant, when we opened, cause that was Jeremy's first restaurant. He had him up the ranks through, you know, Jean-Georges and then he obviously won Top Chef season 13, but Supper Seat was his first restaurant.

(8:37 - 8:50)

And now we have a Michelin star, but when we opened, it was challenging. We lost money for the first six months cause he had to figure out that balance and he started to figure it out. So our food cost when we started was at 40%, too high.

(8:50 - 9:19)

So in sitting with him, meetings, conversations, back and forth, brainstorming sessions on what it is we can do, and really a little bit on the belief in himself over time that he is such an amazing chef that guess what? You can still put out incredible food without having to FedEx fish from, you know, Hawaii or whatever it is, you know, which is expensive. So over time, our food cost today is 24%. Over the years, look at the headway that we've made and I credit Jeremy.

(9:19 - 9:38)

And you know, by the way, that story is true with all of our chef partnerships, it's the same process. But in this example, you got to credit Chef that he had trust in us, that what we're talking about kind of made sense and he trusted the process and he was open to listen to other options. Well, 24% food cost is actually really good, especially in a restaurant like that.

(9:38 - 9:46)

Yeah. To be fair, part of that, when we started our tasting menu, when we were brand new and nobody knew us, was a lot lower than what we charge today. So that helps as well.

(9:47 - 9:55)

Sure. Of course, you guys have the credibility and everything, the brand. Ignacio, another challenge that we have right now, especially in the Florida market or Miami market is real estate.

(9:56 - 10:18)

How do you guys go about site selection and how do you guys pick them? And what do you guys do to pick the best ones without going crazy with the rents that you guys are paying? Yeah. So that's a hot topic right now because we feel that Miami's in a restaurant bubble. And that's partly why a lot of the restaurants, you know, our industry overall is seeing a downward to same store sales over last year.

(10:18 - 10:30)

You know, we just have too many restaurants. How many restaurants do you guys have right now? Oh, us? We have seven street side and we have another 16 in airports to sort of backtrack. You know, so we have two divisions.

(10:30 - 10:37)

We have the street side division, and then we have an airport division. They're sister companies, but they're both run out of our office. And, you know, by the same people.

(10:38 - 11:11)

So our airport business is actually a lot bigger than our street side business right now, but our street side business is the one that gets all the recognition because of the Michelin guide and the store and all that, but honestly, that all those recognitions has actually really helped our airport business because airports more and more are going into the more local concepts, chef driven concepts, local breweries, the transit airports are going away from like the Chili's and the TGR fighters of the world, et cetera. So that credibility that we have on the street kind of helps us in the airports as well, so that's what we have those. Got it.

(11:11 - 11:20)

Didn't mean to throw you off track there, but just wanted to give it a little bit of background because we're talking about site selection. No, no, no, it's a good question. So as it relates to real estate selection, we are extremely picky in picking locations.

(11:21 - 11:41)

We actually turn down probably 95% of the stuff that gets presented to us. And the reason for that is that we're very conservative. And the first question that we always ask in a location is like, do we have a 99.9% confidence that we'll be able to return our investors' money and our own money? And if the answer is no, if it's 85%, then, you know, we don't do it.

(11:41 - 11:53)

We don't need to grow for the sake of growing and, you know, we're privately owned and we're blessed that we don't have a gun to our head by a private equity firm or something like that, you know, they got to grow. We don't have that. So we can do whatever we want, basically.

(11:53 - 12:03)

So with that being said, when we pick a location, we look at something that's really different. I'll give you an example. So when we bid on, you know, for example, Glass & Vine.

(12:03 - 12:27)

Glass & Vine was in a location that was in a park in Miami and it was a former library and city office or whatever. And the city of Miami wanted to turn that into a restaurant to, you know, revitalize that park, et cetera. And so when we looked at the competitor set, there's really no, at the time, there's really no other restaurant that's adjacent to a park and adjacent to a children's playground.

(12:27 - 12:41)

Although a step further, the city code in Miami doesn't allow any establishment to serve liquor within a thousand feet of any church, school, playground, et cetera. And you got all three. Yeah, right.

(12:41 - 12:42)

All three are there. Right. Exactly.

(12:43 - 13:01)

So the city of Miami commission actually made an exception for us. So again, that's something really different, right? Because what we can provide to our guests is, is a different experience. And that's why that, that site in front of the kid park is really so popular because if parents can sit there and enjoy a glass of wine while they can watch their kids play, it's something very unusual, it doesn't exist in Miami.

(13:02 - 13:07)

So that's a good example. Another example would be Bayshore Club. That was a very expensive project.

(13:07 - 13:16)

First of all, to go after, because that was also another, you know, city of Miami RFP. So that process is very intensive. It's, you know, et cetera.

(13:16 - 13:28)

And the project itself was very expensive to build as well. But again, we felt that was something different for the city of Miami. That's a waterfront restaurant, which for those viewers that are not from Miami would be like, well, yeah, everything in Miami is waterfront.

(13:28 - 13:44)

But as you know, there's not a lot of waterfront restaurants in Miami, which is very strange, right? It's just very odd. So we felt, well, that's going to be something different, right? That's going to bring something different to the city that's going to differentiate ourselves from all the other restaurants. So, you know, those are two examples that we really look at something.

(13:44 - 13:57)

Okay. Something that, that hasn't been done before, or it's very unique or it's very different. Because otherwise, honestly, it's just to open a restaurant in the middle of, I don't know, Wynwood, wherever it is, in line, a box.

(13:57 - 14:09)

It's first of all, very expensive to build, but it's very challenging then to differentiate yourselves from others. Yeah, yeah, no, a hundred percent. So Ines, what are you guys seeing in terms of, of course, real estate is a hot topic.

(14:09 - 14:24)

Besides that, there's other things. What do you guys see in terms of trends with high labor costs, food costs, all that stuff that everybody knows about? What do you see things going in the industry? I think we're in interesting times. I think there's going to be a lot more automation, primarily in the quick service segment.

(14:24 - 14:49)

Cause that's, that's a lot easier. Like it's a lot easier to automate processes, for example, in a McDonald's, which, you know, they're already working on than a fine dining restaurant. But I think if they get to a level where they're going to need less staff, I think that'll release some of the pressure in some of the other segments within the industry, right? Cause there'll be additional labor that is not being used while a quick service.

(14:49 - 15:02)

I actually went to the National Restaurant Association food show right now in May. And I was in shock at how many vendors were selling like these robotic arms to do fries or things like that. So it's already starting, it's already out there.

(15:02 - 15:22)

And, you know, I have seen a lot of articles where McDonald's and Chipotle, Chipotle's coming up with a machine that can do the fresh guac. I mean, is the machine going to scoop it out of the avocado and all that? I don't know. But again, that's going to release a lot of labor that's not needed for that just one task, right? So if you multiply it, I think hopefully that'll ease the labor burden that we have right now throughout the country within our industry.

(15:23 - 15:38)

Yeah, no, definitely. Especially in your type of concepts, full service restaurants. What are you guys doing currently to offset, again, those high labor and food costs? One of the things that we did right after the, not right after the pandemic.

(15:38 - 15:50)

So it was 2020, probably 2022 when, you know, all these labors, inflation started hitting and all these food costs started going up, et cetera. We hired a director of purchasing, which we hadn't had before. Super crucial.

(15:50 - 16:10)

By that point, we already had enough purchasing power that we hadn't used to our advantage. But that this director of purchasing was able to really help us create contracts around all of our purchasing. And even though we have different concepts that all have different inventory specs, we were still able to create a lot of efficiencies and really, really lower food costs.

(16:10 - 16:20)

I'll tell you, it was such an impact for us that I think our food costs today is lower than before the pandemic. So that's how much, and it's interesting. I can't even imagine, for example, Chipotle.

(16:20 - 16:32)

That's why they were charged so little in comparison, right? For the chicken or for the bowls or anything else, because they're so huge. So the amount of purchasing power they have is tremendous. And that's something that we really haven't taken advantage of.

(16:32 - 16:47)

I can see where other, maybe smaller operators that don't have that, how they could really be struggling. For us, it just, we hired the person at the right time because of our size and it happened to me to be at the same time that inflation was going up. So it sort of worked out our way.

(16:48 - 17:05)

But not only the purchasing director, we've created pretty strict purchase order processes. We're very big on processes and on streamlining things and on being organized and having controls in place. Because if you have all that, that's really going to increase your chances of being successful for sure.

(17:06 - 17:33)

Yeah, a hundred percent. So I know you guys have continued to scale and opening new restaurants. I mean, I'm not sure when was the last opening, Ignacio, but how do you guys go about making these decisions to scale, right? Because it's complex, especially if you're doing different types of concepts, because it's not the same and everything, a lot of things change and then the systems can apply, but then you got to do a whole new brand marketing, like just everything.

(17:33 - 17:59)

So how do you guys go about scaling? Is there a specific way that you guys go about it? It's a great question. And I would say the way we scale, going back to your earlier question and which I mentioned that we don't have any sort of mandate or we don't need to grow if we don't want to. So the answer is that we look for specific opportunities and if it matches something that we want to do and that we think is going to be successful, then we'll do it.

(18:00 - 18:09)

So what we have coming up, for example, is we're opening our first starboard seed outside of Miami, our second starboard seed. So that's going to be in Las Vegas. Yeah.

(18:09 - 18:29)

So that's going to be a partnership with the Resorts World, with the Genting Group, which is one of the largest companies in the world in terms of gaining. And that came about because the chairman's son was a fan of Stubborn Seed and they wanted us in their property over there. They have a lot of good restaurants in their property on the street, but they were still waiting.

(18:29 - 18:36)

They were still trying to figure out what to do with their high-end restaurant, with their chef-chef restaurant. They saw it and done one. So here we go.

(18:37 - 18:45)

And they really gave us the option, you know, they basically told us, you guys have three options. You can lease it and you just pay us rent and operate. You can license it to us.

(18:45 - 19:03)

We'll pay you a fee and they'll operate. And they told us, or our preference is that we go 50-50, meaning that you guys operate, but we put in 50% of the money, you have access to our entire marketing department here, our sales team, everything. And we're like, God, this is one of the biggest gaming companies in the world.

(19:03 - 19:22)

Once you partner up with us, we're like, yeah, let's do that. So that's an example of an opportunity that we sort of couldn't pass up because I think we're going to hit it out of the park there, but if and when we do, that can potentially open up other opportunities within that casino or even other properties around the world. That's kind of a no-brainer opportunity that I was alluding to earlier.

(19:22 - 19:36)

It's like something that really makes sense and we're going to do it. A hundred percent. So when you're talking about all of this stuff and these opportunities, have you guys built success over time? I think leadership, which is one of the main topics in this podcast has a lot to do with.

(19:36 - 19:58)

Talk to me a little bit about first, what's the leadership style at Grove Bay? And how do you guys go about developing leadership and new leaders in the company? So I'm a big fan of an author called Simon Sinek. I don't know if you've heard of him. He has a book called Leaders Eat Last, which talks about serving leadership.

(19:58 - 20:31)

And that's the way that I try to, I'm not saying that I'm great at it, but that's my leadership style, which basically puts the need of the employees first. I feel like my job as a leader is to lead by humility, is to listen, is to provide whatever our team members need in terms of tools, support, et cetera. And by default, our belief with that leadership style is that if our team members succeed with our support, then obviously the company's going to succeed by default, right? So that's kind of my leadership style.

(20:32 - 20:40)

Simon Sinek, I tell you, he's a great author. He's got like in the TED Talks, one of the most viewed. So I would encourage everybody to sort of read his books.

(20:40 - 20:44)

He's got a bunch of books. I think I've read them all. So yeah, no, he's good.

(20:44 - 21:19)

Absolutely. And how do you guys go about, because I mean, that's your style. And my experience has been that at the top, when you're leading a team, sometimes it is difficult that whatever you guys or whatever you talk about at the executive level, let's say, kind of trickles down as part of the culture and style in the rest of the company, right? Is there any specific things that you guys do to achieve that? Our industry is very difficult for that exact reason that you just mentioned, right, especially even just in Miami, because you're in all these different locations, but then imagine if you're in different states.

(21:20 - 21:36)

So, you know, with our airports, we're obviously in Florida, but Rhode Island, Seattle, Washington, on the other side of the country, we're going to be in Vegas now, we're in Raleigh. I mean, that makes it very, very challenging to kind of create that message and make sure that everybody hears it. So extremely challenging.

(21:36 - 21:53)

So how do we tackle that? A couple of years ago, right after the pandemic, we realized that we need to invest more heavily in our training and development and sort of culture department. So we hired a guy who was a brilliant guy, Ivy league guy. He was in the same role for BurgerFi and helped them grow to their 200 units.

(21:54 - 22:20)

So he leads that team and he has a team to sort of carry the message, if you will. Some of the ways that he does that is we sign on with an app that's used for training and for communication, et cetera. So we figured if we can't be there in person, which is physically impossible to be there all the time, then at least through this app, we have all of our training in there, we have videos of training, we have videos of myself or my partner with messages.

(22:21 - 22:31)

We have any sort of updates or things happening. It's sort of like a social board as well that goes up there as well. So that's one tool to make sure that everybody keeps on the same page.

(22:32 - 22:49)

Another way is that we have quarterly calls with the entire management team where the executive team, myself, and some of the senior people sort of just communicate. We do employee surveys every year. And one of the things that always came back, luckily we do pretty well and people are happy, but our lowest score every year was communication.

(22:49 - 23:11)

So that sort of talks about how difficult it is. The question that you're asking how challenging it is for us, you know, in our industry, because again, we're so spread out, so we really put a lot of effort trying to figure out, okay, how do we make people feel that, that we communicate with them? So again, these quarterly calls where we just update people on what's going on and hear them out, et cetera. Those are happening.

(23:12 - 23:28)

We have our director of operations mandatorily attending several of the manager meetings every week or every month, et cetera, to make sure that a corporate presence is there and there could be communication back and forth. So those are just some examples, but we've implemented several things. Again, it's still very difficult.

(23:28 - 23:35)

It is not easy, but we do our best. And I'm sure over next year, in the two years, we're going to come up with new stuff, but we do try. That's fantastic.

(23:35 - 23:45)

And bringing somebody in specifically for that, I think it's huge. It's hard for many reasons, just the nature of the industry. And as you scale, having bigger team, a lot of new hires constantly.

(23:45 - 23:54)

So how do you, is that going to continue? Yeah, no, for sure. We already hired the GM and the chef in, uh, Sovereign City, Vegas. So we brought them down here for a week.

(23:54 - 24:13)

I had dinner with them. They ate at the restaurant, you know, they worked at the restaurant. We want them to, at least for that week, because they don't live here, but at least for a period of time to really feel our culture of the company, the culture of the restaurant, the fabric, you know, what makes Sovereign City what it is, and I think that was huge because now they're sort of bought into that.

(24:13 - 24:20)

Right, right. No, definitely. So Ines, I mean, being a leader is definitely not an easy position and many times, right.

(24:20 - 24:30)

And to do it right. Yeah, it just requires a lot of tough decisions. Being a leader, let me be a leader, but being a CEO, which is, you know, being a leader, it is the most lonely position, which it really is.

(24:31 - 24:42)

A hundred percent, 100 percent. Entrepreneurship in general, if you're in it, it's a lonely road. You know what I mean? You have maybe a couple of people that you talk to and then you're just like, man, I got to figure this shit out.

(24:43 - 24:49)

Yep. So those sleepless nights are pretty common in these roles. For sure.

(24:49 - 25:08)

Talking about that, Ines, I mean, tough decisions we were just talking about. So can you share a moment or a story of where you guys have to make some pretty tough decisions when it came to business? And the pandemic was definitely one that a lot of people had to deal with. So I can give you a great example that we talk about sometimes that actually happened during the pandemic.

(25:08 - 25:28)

So during the pandemic, obviously restaurants were shut down and then the government started giving e-money. And at the time we had to make the decision whether to pay our employees to stay at home or whether to hold that money and hold it so we can reopen. Right? Because you need to reopen at some point in time.

(25:28 - 25:35)

I would say that the majority of our restaurant colleagues that I knew held on to the money. And again, I'm not judging. Everybody needs to do what they need to do.

(25:35 - 25:51)

And it was a tough decision because it was $2 million. It's not a small amount of money to pay out to help people stay at home. So as my partner and I, you know, Francesco and I talked about it, we're big on our core values and whatever our core values is people focused and it's about taking care of our people and et cetera.

(25:51 - 26:08)

And then we went back to that and we said, well, core values really aren't just when times are good. I mean, core values really matter when things are tough and that's really shows who you are when things are tough. So we went ahead and paid everybody to stay home at the risk of not knowing whether we had enough money to reopen.

(26:08 - 26:18)

Right. But at the time that was the right thing to do. And, you know, he and I always joke, my partner and I, that that was the worst financial decision we ever made, but that was the right moral decision, but it was the right moral decision.

(26:18 - 26:37)

And, you know, we would do it again because we need to, as leaders, going back to your leadership question, one of the most important things of being a leader is that if you say something, you better back it up and what you do better match what you say, because if it doesn't complete credibility forever. So if we're saying that we're about our people, then during the difficult times, you better match that. That's what we did.

(26:37 - 26:46)

That's an example. And all of our decisions, all of our decisions, we go back to our core values and be like, this is aligned with our core values. And that sort of gives us the answer.

(26:47 - 26:54)

So important, Ignacio. And I guess that's at the level that you guys are at now, but also I think when you're starting out, so important to define those core values of who you are. Right.

(26:55 - 27:02)

So for like independent restauranteurs are just getting started. Sometimes you might see this as a waste of time, but it really isn't. You're right.

(27:02 - 27:14)

You're right. And we were blessed going back to your first question about my journey and starting with those big firms. And that's really what you take out of those big firms, the structure, the culture and all that.

(27:14 - 27:20)

And we took that with us from that experience. And that's how we started our company. My partner, by the way, was with Ernst & Young for many years.

(27:20 - 27:29)

So he has a very similar path to mine. He's a CPA also, but he each did it with a different big five firm. So we were very lucky that we had that experience.

(27:29 - 27:41)

Just how do we not had that? Then we wouldn't have even know how to do it. Right. Which is what a lot of probably restauranteurs face when they open a restaurant, but I think it's very important because I think people don't work for somebody else to make money.

(27:42 - 27:52)

I mean, obviously getting paid is important, but they have to believe in what you do. Why is it that we do what we do? Why is it? The answer of to make money is not a good answer. That's a by-product of just doing it.

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So why is it that what we do, what we do, and that's our mission center, right, to enhance people's lives. And that could be anything, right? So how do we enhance people's lives? Our guests, our people, our community, right? So we do different things around those core values, our guests, people, community, sort of live up to our vision. Yeah.

(28:09 - 28:33)

So I think that's how people join up. So I think for a brand new restaurant operator that has one restaurant, I think they may be able to get by because if they're working in the restaurant, I think it's easier because they connect with people and you know, people work for that purpose. But as you start expanding and become bigger and bigger, that you as an owner become more detached, then why are we here? What are we doing here? So that's where the culture and the mission statement and the values really need to flourish.

(28:34 - 28:59)

Yeah, absolutely. I think you guys have a pretty unique background, right? And I think it definitely has played a part in your success because like you're saying, you guys approach this business looking at it as a business, like many times starting off as a restaurant, it's like, Oh, I like to co-org, there's good chefs for like all of these things, or they think it's a good idea to just like sell food, but they don't really think of everything that's entailed in running a business and how complex a restaurant can be. We were very lucky because we did it backwards.

(28:59 - 29:07)

And again, it wasn't by design because I had no intention of being in the restaurant industry. I liked the restaurant industry. Again, you know, I like eating and drinking, but I didn't know anything about it.

(29:08 - 29:15)

It was a dumb luck that the Srilos called me, but it was luck. And so we, we had that business side of it. And then we just learned operations.

(29:15 - 29:30)

We did it backwards. And I think that's maybe easier than learning operations, being a good GM or being a good chef, but then you don't know anything about signing a lease, banking, insurance, payroll, marketing, public relations, accounting, finance. I mean, there's a hundred things.

(29:31 - 29:37)

If you have your own restaurant, you're a mini CEO and you got to know about all these things for that restaurant. Right. So, yeah.

(29:37 - 29:44)

So we were very lucky. I'd like to tell you it was planned, but it was a dumb luck. Well, that's how many great things happen.

(29:44 - 29:59)

So Inés, you just mentioned marketing and PR, and I think coming from a business background like yourself, you'll understand this, but if you can explain a little bit how important is it to be brand centric, meaning developing concepts that have a strong brand. Oh, super important. Super important.

(30:06 - 30:31)

So we have a brand book for every single one of our concepts and it goes down to, to the font, and this is something that you know a lot about, obviously to the font of what we use and everything to the colors, to, and all that translates to the design, to the website. I mean, everything has to be one united message. And if, if you go to our website, yes, at the bottom, it says it's a restaurant, very small at the bottom, but we really want each brand to stand on its own.

(30:31 - 30:58)

It's its own thing. It's, it's extremely important because when somebody goes to, when somebody chooses a restaurant to eat, yes, it has to have great food, obviously it has to have great service. But the third thing is it has to have a great ambience and the brand is the ambience, right? So what's the music that's playing? How loud is it? Is it very upbeat or is it more of a mellow thing? Whatever music you choose and however loud, it has to match what the brand is, right? It has to match what it is.

(30:58 - 31:05)

You know, Submarine Seed, for example, we play rock. We play alternative rock. Some people like it, some people don't, but that's the brand.

(31:06 - 31:14)

Because Jeremy Ford was in a band. He's all tatted up, right? He curses on TV. That's his persona, right? So the music needs to match a persona.

(31:14 - 31:28)

If we play classical music of Submarine Seed, it'll be weird. It would be off brand, right? So all those decisions are made very, very carefully and it all has to match. And, you know, we have a brand book and something we started doing actually last month, funny enough, that we're talking about branding.

(31:29 - 31:35)

We created a brand audit. So we have operational site audits. We have back of the house audits by our corporate chef.

(31:36 - 32:00)

We just started brand audits that, and our marketing team are the ones that do these audits where they walk into the restaurants and they evaluate everything. Is the music on brand or the lights on brand? Are the plants alive and watered? Are they using the right marketing materials? Are they using the right coasters and napkins and everything else? And so they have a very detailed list that they go through because it's that important. Yeah, definitely.

(32:00 - 32:19)

And also thinking long-term, right? How does branding impact the value of the business itself? Yeah, it's super important. If you don't take care of the brand over time, the value of the brand is going to lose because people will stop going to the restaurant because something's missing. So it's extremely important.

(32:20 - 32:34)

For sure. It's something we definitely advise on for new restaurateurs, like opening up, just investing at least, you don't have to invest a ton at the beginning, but just definitely invest in it because again, you're not just building a business, but you're building a brand. If you're building a brand, the value of that is going to be way more than just the business itself.

(32:35 - 32:50)

Yeah. And even though we're a creative team in-house now, and sometimes we do our own branding stuff, but we are branding companies. I mean, we feel it's that important that it's worth spending the money to make sure that you come up with the right name, with the right logo, with the right colors, feel, et cetera.

(32:50 - 33:16)

Yeah. So Ignacio, to new restaurant owners, right? Because you have a lot of background in finance. What advice would you give restaurant owners about maintaining financial health, especially in this current scenario that we have with all these crazy costs? The biggest thing that I've seen, and I've been in this industry 20 years or so, is that when somebody opens a business, they're too optimistic.

(33:16 - 33:34)

Our industry, as you know, is very unpredictable. So undercapitalized new ventures are the number one failures, in my opinion. I don't have facts to back it up, but it's just from my experience, right? So why is being capitalized enough so important? One, because we've all done it.

(33:34 - 33:44)

If you estimate, and even if you have great numbers, you do all your numbers, okay, I need $1.5 million to open this restaurant, that's what it's going to cost, et cetera. Costs are always over. Always.

(33:44 - 33:57)

The question is, how much is it over? Is it 10% or is it 50%, right? So that you need to have a lot more capital than what you think it's going to cost. Number one. Number two, restaurants don't always hit it off from day one.

(33:57 - 34:03)

I mean, we know this, right? And sometimes it takes time. Like I said earlier, Somerset lost money for its first few months. One, because it wasn't as popular.

(34:04 - 34:08)

But two, because we're running high food costs. Some of it was internally produced. It was our issue.

(34:09 - 34:17)

But we have to have enough capital to carry us through those losses for those six months. The majority of restaurants are not going to be a home run. They're making a ton of money day one.

(34:17 - 34:28)

So you need to have enough capital to be able to sustain that. So undercapitalized restaurants is what I see. And then what happens is that if you're undercapitalized, obviously what you're going to start doing is that you're going to start taking shortcuts.

(34:28 - 34:33)

Right? You're going to start marketing. Maybe you're going to let go of the PR firm. You're going to cut staff.

(34:33 - 34:39)

You're going to reduce your menu. Right. You're going to do things too, obviously, because you got to make it buy.

(34:39 - 34:49)

And I don't blame them, but that all comes from being undercapitalized. So it's sort of like the downward spiral because you start doing things and cutting costs and it just keeps going down and down. Yeah, for sure.

(34:49 - 34:54)

That's been my experience as well. First opened my first restaurant. We thought it was going to cost this much.

(34:54 - 35:41)

And yeah, always, always, every single time I was going to take this long. And it was, it takes a lot more time, but you just mentioned something interesting when restauranteurs, they open up, they're undercapitalized. The first thing to go is PR and marketing, right? And you coming from a different industry, understanding that businesses need to have all their legs, meaning finance, operations, marketing, which is part of it, and it's a huge part of it for restaurants, what do you think restaurant tours, because we see this quite a bit, make those decisions of saying, this is the first thing to go, which is one of the things that would, I would be, in my opinion, and that's just because I'm in marketing, I was in restaurants as well, is the last thing to go because that's, what's getting you the ability to bring people in.

(35:42 - 36:00)

I think the short answer is because it is often hard to understand what the return is immediately. I think most people can always see the return that if you invest in all that long-term, the restaurant's going to succeed, but short term, it's very, very difficult. So for example, if you're paying a PR firm, are your sales going to go by 50% next month? No, no, they're not right.

(36:00 - 36:03)

It takes time. It's a process. And that's true for most of the marketing initiatives.

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So they take the short sighted view and obviously, and again, I don't blame them because if you're short and you got to meet payroll or in a PR company, you're going to pay your employees. That's what I call the, that spiral, you know, once it started doing that, because you're just going down a tube once you start cutting out marketing. Yeah, definitely.

(36:24 - 36:46)

So Ignacio, if you could attribute one principle or value to this success of Grove Bay, what would that be? I think it comes down to our clear vision of what our mission statement is. And we talked about this earlier a little bit and what our core values are. Again, our mission statement is to enhance people's lives, one person, one neighborhood at a time.

(36:46 - 37:09)

And that's reached through our four core values, which are exceptional hospitality, people focused, community, and then performance is last. And then what we always say is that if we make sure that our guests have an exceptional experience, if we take care of our people, and if we're a part of our community, then the profits take care of themselves. So we never put people before profits or processes or community.

(37:09 - 37:18)

Those are the most important things. And then profits will come. I've seen a business too many times going back to my audit days or restaurants that people put, make decisions based on how much money they're going to make.

(37:18 - 37:31)

And I think that's a wrong decision. Putting profits last, obviously going back to the 40% food cost, that doesn't work either. There's always a balance, but we would never, ever serve, just get the least expensive fish you can get just to make more money.

(37:32 - 37:36)

No, absolutely not. The guest experience is the most important thing. We'll worry about the profits later.

(37:36 - 37:44)

Yeah, that's fantastic Ignacio. So what's next for Grove Bay Ignacio? What's coming up? Anything on the pipeline? Yeah. So we have 2025 is going to be busy.

(37:44 - 37:53)

So we have Vegas start receipt opening in probably January, February. So it's soon. And then we have around eight openings in airports.

(37:53 - 38:02)

We have, I want to say five in Raleigh and like three or four in Providence. So we are on eight or nine openings, nine or 10 openings next year. We're just going to be busy.

(38:02 - 38:06)

It's going to keep your team busy. Oh yeah. So again, you know, the majority is in airports.

(38:06 - 38:24)

Going back to our earlier point of it might be being over flooded with restaurants. Airports are very difficult to land those contracts because they're very competitive. But you know, once you get them, they're very nice because they're, you know, you don't have to worry about marketing, but you don't have to worry about SEO and all that because the people are there.

(38:24 - 38:28)

So those are pretty good contracts we have. Oh, that's a hundred percent. That's a great model.

(38:29 - 38:35)

That's great. Yeah, for sure. And as your last question, of course, your restaurants are fantastic.

(38:36 - 38:52)

Any favorites, restaurant favorites in Miami besides, of course, your restaurant? Yeah, I have a bunch. You know what's great? What I'm super proud of Miami for those that have been here a long time, and I was born and raised in Miami 15, 20 years ago, the Miami culinary scene was completely different. Right.

(38:52 - 39:00)

I mean, I'm just so impressed. I'm proud of where the city has come. I mean, if you think of every world chef, I mean, everybody's here now, all the best concepts.

(39:00 - 39:09)

And like you, you know, I travel quite a bit in a lot of the big cities in the country and really in the world. And I would put our city up with any other city. I think our culinary has gotten fantastic.

(39:09 - 39:28)

So there's a lot of great restaurants, but one that I'm a big fan of is Ucci and I'm a big fan of Ucci because I actually went to them a long time ago in Austin, which is where the first one was, you know, before they expanded. And I thought it was unbelievable. I think Bon Appetit or one of those magazines back then had named them the number one sushi restaurant in the country.

(39:28 - 39:33)

It was many years ago. So when they opened in Miami, I was like, I'm super happy. So I'm a regular there for sure.

(39:34 - 39:39)

That's a good concept. But what about a hole in the wall, man? Let's get more of like the street stuff, man. Hole in the wall.

(39:40 - 39:45)

Hole in the wall. Those are the nice concepts. Yeah, that is a nice concept.

(39:46 - 39:53)

Around my neighborhood, I live in Pinecrest. So I go to a place called a Pizza Brooklyn, which is in Pinecrest here. It's an Italian restaurant.

(39:54 - 39:56)

It's solid. It's good. It's easy to get in and out.

(39:56 - 40:00)

And so that's my go-to here when I'm home. All right. Well, awesome.

(40:00 - 40:06)

And I say, well, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure speaking to you. Definitely a lot of great insights.

(40:06 - 40:20)

So for our audience, of course, they can find your concepts in many airports now. And then also in Miami to find your concept. And I see for people that are visiting Miami, growbiggroup.com. So anybody visiting Miami, check it out.

(40:20 - 40:25)

Check out that website and they can see all the concepts and visit. All right. Thank you again.

(40:25 - 40:27)

Thank you, Sebastian. Thank you for your time. All right.

(40:27 - 40:28)

Take care.