Broken Yolk Cafe:

Jeff Walter (00:00)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, is partner training meets strategic impact. My guest today is Ed Powers. Ed is the Director of Operations for Broken Yoke Cafe. 30 years with Brinker International, where he was…

 

most recently served as the director of operations for Chili’s, he decided to reacquaint himself with the neighborhood breakfast cafe he’d grown up with visiting decades prior, the Broken Yoke Cafe. Now as director of operations for the San Diego Staple, his focus is squarely placed on cementing the brand’s position as a category leader in the breakfast and lunch space. Ed, welcome to the program.

 

Ed Powers (00:38)

Thank you for having me, Jeff.

 

Jeff Walter (00:40)

So Ed, I’m a curious guy. I always wonder how people end up where they are. You were 30 years director of operations for Chili’s, which most folks probably are aware of. How’d you end up where you’re at now?

 

Ed Powers (00:53)

Well, you know, it was a great career and I have nothing but great things to say about that time with Chili’s. But I live in San Diego.

 

I had my grandson. And so what I realized at that point is I wanted to stay local. I was looking for something local here in San Diego. And I got a phone call from Broken Yoke and it wasn’t a phone call I was expecting. I was interviewing a few other people. I didn’t even see a posting and I got a phone call and got set up with an interview. When I first walked through the doors, as you mentioned, it was one of the places I came here when I was in my 20s at the Pacific Beach location. So was kind of a full circle coming back around and it just felt right.

 

You know, if you ever walked into a situation, I met John, our owner, and got to meet the executive team. And it was like, this is a good fit. Smaller scale kind of took me back to my old seafood broiler days and really saw the potential where we could take the brand. I was very excited about joining the team.

 

Jeff Walter (01:45)

So talk a little about the Seafood Broiler Days because we were talking just before we started recording. I think that was an interesting ⁓ story that kind of got you down this whole trail, started the whole career path down the restaurant. So how’d you up up the… Yeah.

 

Ed Powers (02:00)

The whole needing to get a job thing, that thing. Yeah.

 

Yeah, so I mean, was just, was living in Seal Beach and I was living with a guardian and I had to go get a job. So I went down Coast Highway and plied it a couple places and I’ll never forget it. It was McDonald’s and Seafood Broiler, which was no longer a business, but it was ⁓ a upscale seafood house.

 

never got a call back from McDonald’s, man. I thought for sure I would get that job, but no, I didn’t get a call back. It was Seafood Broiler, and that’s really where my career started. I was with them for eight or nine years and was able to do openings with them and just really kind of grow. I started off in the dish area and worked my way up.

 

So that was the first experience in it and I you know it’s one of those things where you fall into something and I love the business it was like my gosh I’m getting paid to do this this is this is awesome. I wish I had known about this earlier so and it’s been a great ride ever since

 

Jeff Walter (02:54)

And so then as director of operations at Chile, so there’s just a handful of locations there, I believe. ⁓ Just a couple.

 

Ed Powers (03:01)

just a couple, yeah.

 

Yeah, my market kind of varied. I would have any, California, always a mix of California and then it could have been Nevada, a mix of Nevada in there or Utah for a little bit. So, you know, got a chance to see different parts of the country. Got to go back to Dallas a lot because that’s where it was based out of. But the roles were different than what I do really here at the Broken Yoke. That would, that operation, that director of operations was truly, hey, you had anywhere.

 

8 to 12 restaurants and you oversaw operations in the restaurants every day. This has been more of a corporate job where I’m in the restaurants and I’m assisting but there are franchisees and they have their leadership teams that are operating. It’s really about the support and providing the tools necessary for us to be consistent as a brand and grow.

 

And so I got really heavily into product procurement. That was a new thing for me, which was very, very interesting to see how you scale things. You brought that up as how do you scale and seeing how you get product everybody in different states as we scan, as we grow out, how do we make sure that we can get everything that they need like we did in San Diego for many years.

 

Jeff Walter (04:07)

So curious, so Broken Yoke was there years ago, back in your 20s, and then you come back around and there’s this opportunity. It’s only been franchised recently, right? It was basically this landmark breakfast cafe in San Diego, if I recall.

 

Ed Powers (04:22)

Oh yeah, it’s pretty well known in Southern California. I shared a story recently. I was in Dallas visiting our one location out there and I had a couple people stop me and see because I had my branded sweatshirt on and they were like, broken yoke. And they all knew the story. We had one location out there. So it’s amazing that the footprint that we have for the amount of people that have been to particularly this location at Pacific Beach. Now, as we’ve scaled out over the years, obviously they’ve had opportunity to dine in other broken yolks, but this one is probably

 

the most famous one just because the time that it’s been here and it’s the original one.

 

Jeff Walter (04:56)

So when did they decide to go from a local landmark restaurant to start to franchise, to spread the word and spread the goodness as it were?

 

Ed Powers (05:09)

Yeah, right. Well, John, people kept approaching John, our owner. He would, people would come in here and see the lines. They would see a two and a half hour wait and they’re like, hey, how do you get into that? And you know, John just was like, no, no, no, I’m going to grow it out. I’ll do it. I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. And then it just came a point where he saw that, hey, you know what? This is, this has lakes to it. I want to grow this out.

 

Recently as far as franchising no it’s been I want to don’t hold me to the exact date But I want to say it’s been about 12 years 13 years the franchise who’ve been franchising a first couple were Different type of agreements you have to come back around and get out to the franchise agreements, but Yeah, it’s been about 12 or 13 years now that we’ve been franchising So we currently have 41 locations ⁓ in seven different states our biggest footprint is in South is in, California

 

Jeff Walter (05:50)

And how many units do you all have now?

 

Okay.

 

Ed Powers (05:59)

So from central California, or pretty much southern California, but we have a pretty decent size footprint in our Phoenix market and also in the Vegas market.

 

Jeff Walter (06:09)

So what strategy have you all employed? I there’s a million different ways. You obviously had this great concept, had hours long wait, which is really difficult in the restaurant industry. Sounds like John decides, okay, I think there’s something here. I’d like to spread the love. Let’s start opening up other locations. Let’s start franchising. There’s a bunch of different tactics you can take anywhere from.

 

You know, getting area, you know, growing organically, area managers, franchise sales organizations, you know, and then there’s all the infrastructure you need on the backend for making sure you’re delivering a consistent experience to the customer, right? So how did, when you guys were looking at doing that, when you, and getting to a number of units, what path did he take? Yeah, was it the…

 

Ed Powers (06:36)

you

 

Well, you

 

know, to be honest, lot of it was organic in the beginning. And I would say up until the last couple years, we’ve had a lot of our franchisees that were here from the beginning that really was the internal organic growth that we had. We have new franchisees coming in. We do have a franchise, Valerie Davidson, who’s our VP of franchising. So she’s out there going to the conferences and talking about our concept and doing all that.

 

Jeff Walter (07:00)

Okay.

 

Ed Powers (07:20)

I would say this last year and a half is where we really concentrated on how many we’re going to grow to. How are we attracting new franchisees out there? We do see like the QSR segments, a nice little spot for us because we’re a step out of that into that. So we’ve seen a lot of interest from folks in the QSR. So this last couple of years, it’s been the strategy about how do we bring in the new folks, teach them, have them learn about Broken Yoke and how many, what’s our growth plan? I mean, what are we looking to grow?

 

And so with that said, our target is to be at 70 restaurants in the next four years. That was the target that we came up with.

 

Jeff Walter (07:55)

Okay.

 

Ed Powers (07:56)

And what’s been really nice, the work behind the scenes that we’ve been doing to get more exposure out there. I’m happy to say just even in this year alone, we have like six or seven different leads of franchisees that are really solid leads. And that’s taking us out to a couple of new states also and multi-unit deals, which is exciting to see. So we’re looking at territory, you hey, we’re going to, you’ve got a four or five, six restaurant deal going. So that’s been really exciting to see as we’ve kind of buckled that down. Cause we want to, our main goal.

 

to get over that 50 mark because that’s kind of that magical number right so yeah we’re sitting so we’re at 41 and we’ve got five on the books with this year so we got for this next year upcoming year we have five on the books potentially a 6-1 little slide in there and then it will be pushing double digit the next couple years

 

Jeff Walter (08:26)

Yeah, that magic. Yeah, you’re no longer emerging. You’ve emerged.

 

And how are you finding those folks that would make for good franchisees? Because that fit is so important. It’s not just somebody that can write a check for the fees and all that. I’ve talked to some other folks and they’re like, well, that’s the ante into the game. But it’s really you want to get the right fit, the right type of person. what’s the right type of person for you guys? And it sounds like you got some nice multi-unit opportunities.

 

And how do you find, how you guys been finding those folks?

 

Ed Powers (09:13)

Yeah, so…

 

Well for me that you know that that I attend those things as much as I can and I can’t take credit for that because that’s really gonna be in our franchise department with Valerie but we do all work together on that you know so whether it’s being doing a podcast or whether we’re going to a trade show

 

Most recently, we’re at the trade show in Vegas for the finance and multi-unit conference. So, attending those type of events, but also we are, matter of fact, we just met with a company yesterday that was talking about how they could maximize our franchisee filling the top funnel. How would they go out there and market that for us and how we can extend that. we’re in discussions with them right now. It looks very, very good, which when we’re doing the math on it, it kind of equated out to potentially,

 

Jeff Walter (09:49)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ed Powers (10:01)

sign

 

anywhere from nine to ten more franchisees per year, that’s really what they deliver. So ⁓ it’s attending the conferences. think our Connor, who you’ve had the opportunity man, our director of marketing, has done an outstanding job putting marketing campaigns together. Also telling the story of Broken Yoke. It’s unique, it’s different.

 

Jeff Walter (10:06)

Nice.

 

Ed Powers (10:19)

and not knocking any other company out there, it’s just it really started from a grass root effort. And watching it grow organically and the story behind it, I think it’s what differentiates it. And I think both Connor and Valerie have done a great job of wrapping that up in a package where we can explain that to folks. I think also like our engagement with the franchisees, we’re smaller so we can move quicker.

 

It’s not like moving the big Titanic, know, and you got the big company, you got to go through a lot of layers to get an initiative run through.

 

Make some changes happening here. We’re pretty nimble right now. We can move pretty quickly and With that being said in doing that we’ve been working We worked on systems and some controls and things like that to make it more consistent and as we scale out How do we like I shared with you? How do we make sure that we can provide the same pricing or similar pricing out of state and utilizing our vendors to be able to execute that and then also our training and you brought that up earlier, but we are training director Crystal has done

 

done an outstanding job creating the training support via, I don’t know if you’ve heard of PlayerLink, but that’s the platform that we use, but it’s video based and there’s interactive stuff in there that I would match it against a big chain training. And I came from a big chain and I was very, very impressed with what she had done with that. And she uses avatars, which that was a new thing for me. When I started, I wanted to meet these people. I saw the video, I’m like, Krista, where are these people at? No, that’s

 

Jeff Walter (11:41)

Hahaha.

 

And

 

they don’t exist. ⁓ Well, you know, mean, ⁓ we’ve been seeing that a lot that ⁓ one of the nice things about the avatars, especially used in videos, is updating them and editing. You just go in and edit them. You don’t have to reshoot the whole scene or anything. You know, and especially if things are moving quickly, it just becomes a really cost effective. Not only is it cost effective to make, but it’s cost effective to maintain as well as things change.

 

Ed Powers (11:49)

Yeah, they’re our people.

 

Duh.

 

Jeff Walter (12:13)

So.

 

Ed Powers (12:14)

Like you said, things move quick. And the ability just to kind of do that, I totally agree.

 

Jeff Walter (12:16)

No.

 

Well, so, so as you guys have gone from, you know, a handful, cause you’re, you’re, you’re at that 40. Yeah. I see a lot of emerging franchisors and they get up to that dozen or two dozen. And there’s a handful of people in the organization that have everything in their head and they’re being spread really thin and they’re, you know, they’re, they’re, and they’re just stretched to the end. How did you get.

 

Ed Powers (12:25)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (12:45)

How did you guys get past that to the 40? What have you seen as the biggest challenge from operations? Because it’s great. You’ve got this great concept, it’s great story, great food, lots of people want it. You’re selling franchises, that’s all coming in the door. And then you have the job of actually making sure that there’s that consistent experience that when a customer goes into one, be it Southern California or wherever the next state you’re going to open is.

 

that it’s the same experience. what was the biggest challenge in scaling that you guys faced that, or do you still have a bunch of guys running around like ready to pull their hair out? ⁓

 

Ed Powers (13:21)

No, I think

 

we’re good on that end now. But to your point though, there was some of that for a little bit because it was moving so fastly and just the size of who we were. So adding that office support to be able to stay ahead of what the demands are. Because you’re also a service to your team out there.

 

they need something, you got to make sure that you’re able to do it. And then the openings, because we go out and we help with those things too, to make sure the team is trained properly and get out there. So what we did is we just start following our org chart. We start planning, like, hey, when we get to this level, where is that next role we need to backfill into? So one, we don’t overcommit, you know what I mean? That’s not good. But on the other end of it, we’re not behind. So most recently, we just placed, we just hired someone. was our culinary director, culinary manager of training, which was a big

 

big

 

horror for us because now that’s somebody that we can get out in the field. He’s gonna be our heart of the house trainer. He’s gonna be somebody that’s helping with the systems and being able to go out there and help our teams with, what’s food costs look like? How can you manage the labor in the kitchen? Really the operational side of it. And then our systems, continuing to evolve the systems to be current, relevant, and…

 

consistent. As you probably know, those things have changed quite a bit from the old days of writing a prep sheet to it’s all digital now. mean, the ability to go in and do it, they’ve got tech for that now.

 

Jeff Walter (14:42)

So which processes and systems would you say are, you know, if I was a franchise or maybe I had a couple of, you know, let’s say four or five corporate stores and I got my first half dozen or so franchisees and that like 10 to 20 groove and I’m starting to pull my hair out because, know, and I’ve got a great concept. So people keep coming and saying, oh, I want to open up a store. want to open a store. And especially when you go out of state, like you go, or you go.

 

Ed Powers (15:07)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (15:11)

far away. If I can drive over there and help them, that’s one thing. If I get on a plane, that’s another thing. What would you say in terms of if I was going to systematize or processize, if that’s a word, where would I start? I’ve seen so many emerging franchisers get into that situation and they just don’t know where to

 

Ed Powers (15:26)

I don’t know, but it sounded good.

 

Jeff Walter (15:36)

start, like where do I start, what systems do I put in place and when, right? Like I like the way you said it. It’s like, well, we’ve got the org chart and we know when we have, you know, 20 units, need to do this, 40 units, we need to do this, 60 units, we need to bring in and do this means bring somebody in to do this and bring somebody in to do this. So where would you start if you were that founder that was stepped on a great concept and it’s starting to take off?

 

Ed Powers (15:52)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, you know, I try to put myself in those shoes, right? Because you start as an independent, it’s a different gig. mean, so now you gotta come up with the systems and the processes to make sure everybody does it the same way. So that is different. How do you do that? And so what I found, and I’m not saying this is the only answer to it, but what I found is, start with the ordering. Make sure that your ordering is locked in. Make sure that you have a purveyor that can support you, that is gonna be aware of the cost challenges that are out there, but also not compromise.

 

quality, you know, how can you get there through negotiating, how can you get through purchasing power, and then get a purveyor that can scale you out, you know, and if they’re really good and you build that partnership, it’s a lot easier as you start to build out restaurants because to me getting the products there, getting what they need is something that’s a challenge.

 

As a matter of fact, I just went through and worked through seven different occ-cosed comp distribution centers. We use a company called Cisco to make sure that all of those were consistent from Dallas, Texas to here in San Diego. And then lock that order guide down. That’s important too, make sure that thing’s locked down and that meaning, you can’t order other stuff in there. that brings the consistency from the product side.

 

Then I would say, make sure that your training is reflective of do they know how to make this stuff? Do they know how you have your prep recipes and get ready to train people on? Do you have your line builds so people can use those as a reference as they’re building the products and training their people? So that picture perfect food and all that, here’s the tools to be able to do that. I think those are some of the fundamental things that are really important.

 

I think also helping just, hey, how do you identify and hire the right people? Now, we can’t really get active in that, but we do have conversations on, hey, who’s the right person? Hey, somebody that has that hospitality gene, somebody that’s not afraid to talk to people, somebody that can make the day turn the other way. And I know that’s more of a soft skill kind of stuff, but still that stuff’s important. But yeah, I think locking down the products.

 

Jeff Walter (18:02)

Well,

 

so really getting the supply chain locked down and proceduralized and then that kind of creates the foundation. Because we’re talking about restaurant business here. So that locks down, okay, I’ve got consistent product coming in. Yeah, I’ve got a consistent ordering system.

 

Ed Powers (18:07)

And then the systems behind it.

 

And then I can feel comfortable,

 

yeah, and I feel comfortable that, you know what, that New York steak is our New York steak. It’s not a different version of our New York steak. It’s not a sirloin because it’s cheaper. think that’s where you run into some issues. And I see it when I go out to eat sometimes. I’ll try one place at other places and it’s not the same. So what causes that? Well, that could be supply chain issues. That could be compliance issues. I think the other important part is to say you have a good bib.

 

Jeff Walter (18:30)

Right.

 

Right.

 

Ed Powers (18:50)

franchisee, franchisor relationship, because you’re really working towards the same goal of, we’re here to serve guests, have a great time, make some money. And so how do we do that together and make sure that we are hearing each other on the feedback that’s given? And some you can move on. Somebody may have a great idea, but it’s an idea that can only be impacted in one restaurant. So being able to have those conversations, hey, I think that’s a great idea, but we need something that’s going to scale to

 

seven different states and as you grow the ability to, hey we got to think that we got to get that to everybody. But we’ve had some great ideas that have come in from our franchisees.

 

Jeff Walter (19:28)

So how do you proceduralize the relationship? I understand having a good relationship, but how do you turn that into a repeatable process so that you’re, as opposed to, well, I just happen to know these couple dozen franchisees and I call them every other Tuesday type thing. Like, how do you?

 

Ed Powers (19:43)

Yeah,

 

well, I think for us right now, we’re fortunate because we’re small enough where the relationships can be pretty tight, if you know what I mean. You know, we’ve got…

 

Jeff Walter (19:50)

Okay.

 

Ed Powers (19:52)

Probably 12 different franchisees right now within the 42 restaurants. Now, I make back that up nine. So we’ve got a couple big players and then you get to know their teams. I think it’s that checking in, communicating, letting them know that you are there, they’re in need, but also communicating of things that are coming up and making sure they’re informed. Try to avoid the surprises, because I know I never appreciated that even when I was not, I wasn’t a franchisee, but I was in operations. And when the surprises would pop in, it’s hard to build that, hey, I’m behind it.

 

Jeff Walter (19:58)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ed Powers (20:22)

you get behind it, but that, we’re part of it.

 

Jeff Walter (20:25)

And so going back to the ordering, you were talking about, you I always think of people processing technology and, getting the right people. You talked about getting the right process. that, does the tech come from those suppliers or is that tech that, you know, the tech supports the process, right? So that, you you can do it consistently. Is that something that I’m just, I’ve never been employed by a restaurant ever.

 

I’m just a consumer. Way back in my day when I was looking for a job, I ended up as a janitor at a temple. So I had, I mean, I can set a bingo and break it down like nobody.

 

Ed Powers (20:49)

No.

 

There you go!

 

You’ve

 

got to be a man. Wire.

 

Jeff Walter (21:06)

When you’re talking, again, I’m that emerging franchise or is it the supplier that I’m going to get the tech from that’s going to help me ensure that process or am I putting a layer of tech between my franchisees and my vendors?

 

Ed Powers (21:20)

Yeah, I would say for the size that we are, pretty, we’re pretty tech heavy. mean, we, we have like review tracker. We’ve got our punch, which is our loyalty program. Uh, we have our Olo and there’s other ones out there. They know we have our player link. Now, as far as that food side of it, if you’ve got a good vendor like Cisco, who’s a national company, there’s they, they’ve got systems in there for you. As a matter of fact, I just, we just recently wrapped up a project where they have a.

 

Jeff Walter (21:35)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ed Powers (21:48)

system and they’re called Cisco Shop. So what you do is you just load everything in there and it’ll work out your food cost for every single item on your menu and then roll it up to a total food cost for you. So when you’re looking at pricing and you’re looking at things like that, that’s a great tool. I mean you can go in there and hey if I were to bump this up a dollar or take it down a dollar, you know, hey what is the food cost I’m running on that particular item? Great, great technology there and they’ve got more. I’ve been leaning more into that recently just because we are looking to add restaurants

 

365 which is a accounting and labor system that

 

is out there. They presented to me last this last year, but we needed to have a few things done in our end before we can do that. And so doing that, like we did in Cisco shop, now that’s opened the door for us to bring that on board and be able to bring that to our franchisees to say, hey, here’s a great inventory system. Here’s a great labor system that can help you. Now, with a labor system that isn’t impacted by Cisco, but the food side sure was, you you you could enroll it without that being in there. So that’s something that we

 

purposely worked on to make sure we could provide another layer to one, help with food cost and labor. So we’re managing the cost, not just purchasing, but managing.

 

Jeff Walter (22:55)

you

 

So now shifting gears a little over to the training program. So take me through if I’m one of your new franchisees, what does the training look like for me, my initial staff, and then a year from now as staff naturally turns over, what does the program look like for that initial onboarding to the ongoing operations?

 

Ed Powers (23:21)

Yeah, so if as a matter of fact, we just had somebody come in and we’re going to be starting that process here in a couple of weeks. So we have a new franchisee that’s joining the system. And so what they’re going to do is they don’t there’s they’re in a remote market. So they’re not where they we could lean into maybe another franchisee to help out with it. But they’re coming here to our location. That’s typically what would happen if they didn’t have other restaurants around their support where we could go in and they would come here and the general manager and kitchen manager would train here. And so we would get them up

 

to speed as well the restaurants getting ready we bring the ownership team in and we would work with them also for a couple weeks and get them up to speed on what they would need to know as far as being the owner and then we would train their leadership for them and then when that opening comes up we go out there for two weeks so for that first initial opening we go out there and we help with our training team to get them up and running and be successful.

 

Now, after that, any ongoing training, we’re there. As a matter of fact, I was just in a restaurant last week. They had reached out to me asking, hey, we’re kind of having some issue with food costs. Do you mind coming in? Absolutely not. So hey, kind of lay it out to me where you want to concentrate on and we’ll come on in. And so we have those kind of things too, where it’s like, it’s like I said, that support part of it. Hey, I need another set of eyes on this. Can you come in and help out?

 

Jeff Walter (24:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ed Powers (24:37)

So, and I think that’s what builds that trust too. It’s not a bad thing to reach out and say, it’s okay, we’re here. And it goes both ways. I was recently working on a project and I needed some feedback and I was able to reach out to several of our tenured franchisees partners and they gave me some pretty really valuable insights that I wouldn’t have caught. So that was great.

 

Jeff Walter (24:57)

So when you do that training, is there some self-study stuff? I’ve talked to some other franchise oars and they’re like, well, before they come in, here’s the videos or here’s, is there some prerequisites or self-study they do so they come with some base level of knowledge or how does that work? Okay.

 

Ed Powers (25:15)

Yeah, and that’s where that player link stuff comes into play. That’s

 

the, you know, here’s the video training side of it. But then there’s that, I call it the elbow to elbow training. I mean, you’re there with going through it and…

 

I don’t see us getting away from that anytime soon, but it’s a hybrid of both. It’s that, hey, we’re here with you, we’re gonna walk it through, but also here’s some information you can pull up on. What I love too, it’s not a 30, 40 minute video, it’s one of those five minute informative videos for whatever you’re learning about. Here’s how you make an omelet, boom. And so those to me are highly impactful. I remember the day when they were making these long videos, not here, but other places I’ve been at, and you just kinda lose people. You’re putting them in front of a TV, go watch a movie.

 

Jeff Walter (25:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ed Powers (25:57)

It’s like no, them watch that and let’s go play. Let’s get them to do it now. And that’s where I think you see people getting it faster.

 

Jeff Walter (26:03)

So, the right way of characterizing me, like a bunch of micro learning videos and stuff to kind of get them prepped. then, you know, and then, you know, because I always think that that’s a good, you know, I look at it from an evolution, like there’s knowledge acquisition and there’s skill development. You know, we’re in the learning and development space and the learning, the knowledge acquisition, I think a lot of it can be done.

 

Ed Powers (26:12)

Not a ton, but some, yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (26:31)

you know, with that self study type thing. But then with the skill development and that’s the rubbing elbows, it’s, it’s like, okay, well now it’s all about practice and coaching. It’s practice and coaching. And, and, you know, that’s how you develop a skill. can’t, know, no, no, no NBA players ever, you know, read a book on playing basketball and, and been able to, yeah. Yeah. And, and be able to, know, you know, sync a three. Yeah, exactly.

 

Ed Powers (26:41)

Get the reps in. Yep.

 

The John Wooden book didn’t do it, huh? I’m an all-star.

 

Jeff Walter (26:58)

Well, it’s all that skill development. You got to practice and get coached and practice and get coached. And so that’s interesting. so where do you see the program going from a training perspective, going as you guys scale? And I’m sorry, one other thing is, is that training at that the manager level or does it get down to the frontline staff or the back of office, not back office, but the kitchen staff?

 

Ed Powers (27:00)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, the

 

kitchen and the front of the house. the training is available to all franchisees for their hourly functions. So they have access to that player link. That’s where all of their training is housed, all of their support tools. has, it’s the library. You know, if it’s, it could be something to do with, hey, here’s a line check. Here is a, here is a prep sheet. You know, so those are those tools in there and then there’s the training side of it. So in there, they have access to all of that.

 

Manager training we don’t train managers after they open that first one unless they specifically ask us to because at that point they built their foundation They’ve got that they have their first restaurant opening or two or three So it all depends on what the situation is. We have some franchisee owners that own 11 locations Really after that first couple openings generally they’re doing the opening we come out and we help with the opening but they’re not sending their people here for training because they’ve already done the training in their other restaurants So that’s how that we set that up is that it gets them to the point where they can now

 

get their training going. And of course, if they picked up the call and say, we’re not comfortable, we need your support with this, we’ve done that. It’s really up to them on what they would want to do with that. But after our first initial, hey, you’ve opened up.

 

then we’re kind of like, there you go. And if they were to come back and say, I’m open four more, well, we’re not doing the same process for all four because they’ve kind of built the foundation unless they request it. know, hey, I’ve got, I had some turnover in a restaurant, so I don’t feel comfortable trading there. Do you mind? No, no problem. That happens rarely, but it does happen.

 

Jeff Walter (28:51)

And, and, and, ⁓ so that’s, that’s interesting. And with what’s interesting with the multi unit, cause they can cross train each other, within it. Does that go beyond the multi unit? Like if I had a, location that was, you know, if I only had one location, let’s say, or, or I had a location that was not near my other locations, but there was another, franchise or franchisee, down the road, let’s say.

 

Ed Powers (29:07)

Hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (29:16)

Is there a crossover there or they, know, there, you know, does any of, I don’t know if I’m asking that right. Right.

 

Ed Powers (29:23)

It’s rare that we’ve had to do that, but there’s

 

been a couple times where we’ve reached out like our, know, hey, we’ve had our, we have a location in Santee that’s pretty nearby and that team’s really supportive. They love the brand. They want to see the brand grow out. ⁓

 

You know, we’ve leveraged that location a couple times because it’s one of our newer prototypes. Here, you know, this is like I shared with you Pacific Beach. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it’s also our first one. You know, as these get built out, as you well know, there’s a different prototype and it’s the new and greatest thing. So I would say our franchisees are really helpful with that. You know, we’re not, there’s not a need to do that all the time.

 

Jeff Walter (29:48)

Right.

 

Ed Powers (30:02)

But if it ever rises up that hey, like I shared we have had that situation. Santis is one that stands out to me and we had to go over there and do some training and that team was just very open to us being able to go in there and do that.

 

Jeff Walter (30:14)

So another question, just I did an interview with Batteries Plus a while ago. They did something really interesting last year, the Plus Olympics. And I just thought it was brilliant. And I’m wondering if, okay, so the Plus Olympics, so they have like 700 locations.

 

Ed Powers (30:18)

To you.

 

What was this? How we by it?

 

Jeff Walter (30:33)

And, and so, but the plus Olympics was they set up a, basically a, almost like a world cup, an Olympics type thing. And, they broke the country into regions and then, you you had, you know, kind of a written test type of thing qualifier. Right. So it’s knowledge, right. And, ⁓ you know, so participating locations, you know, anybody could, you know, participate.

 

Ed Powers (30:51)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (30:59)

And you would sit there and take these exams about how do you do this, how do you do that, what about this, what about that, really more knowledge oriented. But they tried to put a couple of practical things in there. They’re all about wiring and batteries and stuff like that. So they say, ⁓ which wiring diagram is this? They do some case study type things. Anyway, that’s the qualifiers. And then people that…

 

past or hit a certain threshold or the top X percent. I don’t know exactly how they did it, but that would qualify the person for regionals. And then it would get together and do a regional competition where it go from the knowledge to the do. And they would do things like, okay, you wire this up, you know, change the battery on this, know, things, you know, techniques and skills are relevant to the business. And then they would get some regional.

 

⁓ finalists. And then what they did was they invited all the regional finalists to the finals at their franchise, their annual convention of franchisors. And they, the franchisor, paid for the finalists to come to Vegas. It was in Vegas when they did this. Paid for them to come to Vegas.

 

Ed Powers (32:02)

nice. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (32:14)

⁓ and paid for their time so that the franchisee was not out of pocket. And then at the annual convention, they held the finals where it was all like same thing. And there they blew it out and they had all the franchisee’s owners and people that are at the convention there to watch everybody.

 

Ed Powers (32:17)

⁓ ow.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (32:39)

And, you know, it was a big thing and, and, uh, you know, and they crowned winners of different categories and gave out gold medals and all that kind of fun stuff.

 

Ed Powers (32:44)

I love that. ⁓

 

See that kind of stuff. Here’s the thing, you’re training and you’re having fun.

 

Jeff Walter (32:50)

Yeah. Well, when I was talking

 

to Jason, the thing that hit me is like, well, that’s a lot of fun, right? It’s a lot of fun and you’re learning and they’re going to do it again, but it’s like the Olympics, not something you’re going to do every year. know, it’s not inconsequential on the cost side. But the thing he said that was really interesting is when that was going on, they saw a 60 % increase in training through their LMS.

 

Ed Powers (32:56)

Yeah, but you’re learning.

 

Wow.

 

Jeff Walter (33:18)

They just saw this massive increase just across the board. said, um, think at the end of the day, was like 10 or 20 % of the locations participated, but they just saw across the board increase in training. And it was really cool. Cause it’s, it was, it was, I had not, I had not heard of something like that before and I thought it was brilliant. I, yeah.

 

Ed Powers (33:30)

That’s awesome.

 

Well, I took a note.

 

I stole that idea.

 

Jeff Walter (33:43)

Yeah,

 

I just thought it was brilliant. and, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been promoting it to other people because I just, I just, well, I just think, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it comes at a, like I said, nothing’s free, right. But it, I mean, it got people excited. It got them committed to the brand. It, it, you know, and, built that culture and, then also the uptick. ⁓

 

Ed Powers (33:48)

Good job!

 

No, but…

 

We’ll see if it’s funny.

 

Yeah, those kind of things, because the first thing that’s come to mind is ROI, right? Like, okay, we’re gonna go do this, what’s the ROI on this? And then sometimes it’s hard to measure those things, because maybe it’s a cultural thing or whatever, but look at that, oh my gosh, that was measurable. 60 %?

 

Jeff Walter (34:21)

Yeah, 60 % increase in courses taken and completed and all that kind of stuff. everybody’s just, yeah, the buzz of the thing increased the, because kind of similar to what you were talking about, right? Like there’s a certain defined path that the franchisee goes through and that management team, and then down at the associate level, at the technician level, there are other tracks and stuff, but yeah, they don’t work for you.

 

Ed Powers (34:26)

And so everybody’s is getting better. They’re stronger.

 

Jeff Walter (34:51)

So, you know, they’re not required, right? It’s whatever your local, but, know, they want to make sure that, that, people get trained and all that kind of stuff. And so, uh, they just, uh, he was, I, when he said that I was dumbfounded. like, I haven’t heard of anything that increases the uptake like that. Not like that. Yeah. And then, and then he, you know, I said, they’re going, it was their first one. They, they, they looked at it as a great success. They’re going to do it again, but he, but they’re, you know, he was like, it’s not something we’ll do every year. It’s too.

 

Ed Powers (34:53)

Yeah.

 

Not like that. No, that was pretty, that was pretty special.

 

Jeff Walter (35:22)

It takes too much energy to put on. mean, in addition to the cost, you can just imagine the focus of the corporate staff to pull that off in a given year. But I think the Olympics thing is like, yeah, that’s every four years, right? But he was thinking maybe I’ll do it every other year, every third year, something like that. But I just thought it was really cool. I just thought it was really cool.

 

Ed Powers (35:25)

I bet.

 

Yeah, there was some work going on behind that.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s pretty solid. That is cool.

 

you

 

Jeff Walter (35:45)

Well, what, so, uh, you know, kind of wrapping up, what, do you see as the future for broken yoke? And what do you see as the next set of challenges as you get past that 50 mark on the way to the hundred mark?

 

Ed Powers (35:56)

Yeah, so like I was sharing with you, I’m excited about the next couple of years because watching that amount of interest from franchisees out there, seeing what’s going on with that, and then it’s nice they’re coming in here, we’re doing the meets and greets. I really feel confident about our goals of where we’re going. I really do. And it’s exciting to see the caliber of franchisees that we’re getting into. They have restaurant experience, they understand the industry, they probably franchised in quick service.

 

casual kind of thing. So it’s fun to see them go to that next day full service and you get to be part of that with them. So I think the thing that just keeps me, I just keep not worried about, but just focused on is making sure that we keep the path of having the right people in place to keep supporting it as we grow. So like I shared with you, working that org chart to make sure, we want, got a succession plan going on too.

 

hey, we’re putting the positions in where we need them, because folks always need help, but where and why do you need the help so we can make sure that when we’re hiring, we’re doing it right, wisely, and getting the right people in to do what we need to do to go into the future.

 

Jeff Walter (36:59)

And figuring out the prioritization there, because there’s 101 places where you could help, which is where’s the right next place to help? And that’s a hard thing to figure out. And I think that’s where your feedback with your franchisees is crucial. If you’re not listening to them, if you’re not having those dialogues, don’t know what… Everything’s a good idea until 10 of them raise their hand and go…

 

Ed Powers (37:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (37:28)

No, I really need help here. You know, and ⁓ this is the, yeah, I mean, those are all nice, but this is where I really need help. So that’s really cool. Hey, so wrapping up, you know, I’m in the learning and development space. I like to learn about stuff. recently, this year, ⁓ I, with my daughters completed my first half Ironman. That was my learning experience for this year. It was an interesting learning experience.

 

Ed Powers (37:30)

Yeah, this is where I really need.

 

Yeah.

 

So congratulations.

 

Jeff Walter (37:53)

What do you like to learn about when you’re not at Broken Yoke? What things do you like to explore? I heard you had a granddaughter, a new granddaughter earlier?

 

Ed Powers (37:59)

all right. I

 

got a new grandson. So he’s two and a half. He keeps me going. He actually, him and his mom live with me. So it’s pretty fortunate in the sense I got to spend a lot of time with him since he was born.

 

Jeff Walter (38:05)

grandson, yeah.

 

Ed Powers (38:15)

But the other thing I like, and it kinda sounds geeky, but I’m always reading the trades. I’ll be on my phone, I’ll be looking up stuff, hey, what’s going on? Because the AI stuff, I’m really trying to learn more about AI because that is popping. As everybody talks about it. I remember the first restaurant show I went to, you didn’t see maybe two or three people as a vendor at those shows. Now it’s rows of people that have a service that’s AI related.

 

So I like to learn about that, you know, I recently got into chat GBT, which was man talk about saving time I was like, holy cow, which they’d have had that 20 years ago. I’d have been an all-star but Yeah, it’s that and then just like on a personal level. It’s been a time with the family You know my grandson my daughter those are important to me And I like to go out to the beach. I live I live not too far from the beach So my time off that’s where I go and kind of clear my head

 

Jeff Walter (38:49)

Yeah.

 

Okay. Well, Ed, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it and good luck with Broken Yolk.

 

Ed Powers (39:14)

Well, thank you so much, Jeff. You take care and appreciate it. Take care.

 

Jeff Walter (39:17)

All right, everybody out there, thanks

 

for listening.