This business is all about “SHOW BIZ! Guests don’t just come into a restaurant for food & drink, they’re looking for an experience.
In this episode of the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast, I’m speaking with Dale Schwartz, CEO & Co-Founder of Pinstripes, which is a restaurant concept that boasts giant spaces for bowling, bocce, delicious bistro dining, events, and fun.
These restaurant concepts are as large as 30,000 square feet on multiple levels. Not every restaurant and bar has this much space, but the ideas here can spark ideas of how to capture more guests and keep them spending money.
Listen as Dale shares golden nuggets of wisdom about his restaurant concept including:
• His approach to running a business, not restaurants.
• The importance of “FUN FACTOR” for revenue, repeat business and buzz in the marketplace.
• Why size can be a competitive advantage.
• Essential and foundational brand-building
• Creating a hospitality culture that “Wows” the guest
• Effective leadership, staff training and recognition
• Influencer marketing that drives business
Whether you’re running a single location or building a national chain, Dale’s experience and approach to the restaurant business is a great listen!
Don’t miss this episode.
Listen, would you spend less than the cost of a fancy beer on boosting your restaurant profit?
That’s right for just $7, our Restaurant Profit Maximizer course will show you proven ways to boost profit in your restaurant. https://restaurantrockstars.com/sp/restaurant-profits
Check it out and then go Rock YOUR Profits and YOUR Restaurant!
Roger
Connect with our guest:
• Pinstripes: Overview | LinkedIn
• Dale Schwartz | LinkedIn
• Pinstripes (@pinstripesbbb) • Instagram
• Pinstripes | Facebook
• Pinstripes (@PinstripesBBB) / X (twitter.com)
Thank you to our sponsors:
Popmenu: For a limited time only, popmenu is offering our listeners $100 off your first month plus an unchanging lifetime rate. FREE Demo: https://www.popmenu.com/rockstars
The Birthday Club – Get new and repeat business, fill your tables, and boost sales with Birthdays: https://jointhebirthdayclub.com/BirthdayRockstar/
Tock: Increase restaurant sales, optimize guest throughput, and boost customer engagement all on one seamless platform. Request a demo at https://www.joinTOCK.com/podcast
Restaurant Equippers: Top equipment brands, extensive inventory, everyday low prices, and 60 years serving independent food service operators. Only at https://www.equippers.com/
The Restaurant Academy: Everything you need to know to optimize profits and maximize sales https://restaurantrockstars.com/joinacademy/
Hey there thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today for those of you who follow this regular you know that I’m a huge believer in running a business not running a restaurant and building a powerful brand well today’s guest Dale Schwarz is the CEO and
Co-founder of Pinstripes a large when I say large 30,000 square foot venues that are all around Bowling and botchy Italian-American food to Perfection and providing real EXP experiences and it is all about running a business I’m speaking with Dale about so many things we’re going to be talking about finances
We’re going to be talking about leadership accountability brand building Concepts marketing that is proven to work that’s trackable it covers a lot of ground you’re not going to want to miss this plus Pinstripes is growing huge you know it was amazing I was on my way to
The New York City food show this past weekend and I drove by a Pinstripes concept and it just jumped out at me as a fun place to go and they’re covering all the bases so you’re not going to want to miss this episode thanks so much
To our audience and sponsors and if you haven’t already please check out the show notes to this week’s episode we have something that is called The Profit maximizer and for less than the cost of a craft beer for seven bucks you can get some immediately actionable proven ideas
To increase the profit in your restaurant or Hospital ality operation so check that out in the show notes and on with this week’s episode enjoy you’re tuned in to the restaurant rock stars podcast powerful ideas to rock your restaurant here’s your host Roger Bwin rock stars this year give your team the gift of Pop menu AI answering a simple solution for phones ringing off the hook AI answering handles calls 247365 days a year so your staff can focus on in-person guests customize your greetings and responses answer common questions promote specials and events
And send follow-up links to ordering and reservations AI answering handles it all while escalating more complex conversations back to your team now never miss another tasty Revenue opportunity pop menu is the marketing technology platform designed to make grow your restaurant easy discover more AI restaurant tools that turn your to-do
List into an already done list request the demo today and my listeners for a limited time will get $100 off their first month plus lock in one unchanging monthly rate go now to pop menu.com rockstars again get $100 off your first month at Pop menu.com rockstars listen from one
Restorator to another and I hope you GM’s out there listening as well are paying attention marketing should never be an experiment oh I tried this or I tried that no any of your valuable dollars that you spend on marketing should absolutely be trackable you should know exactly where the business
Is coming from and that it’s driving return on your investment you spend a certain amount of money you want to make far more money in return from that marketing if you can track it so pay attention my friend Dyson runs a business called the birthday club and
His program is done for you because we know that everybody dines out on their birthday it’s a tradition it’s a celebration but not only do they not come in by themselves they bring many friends with them they usually have free spending and large check averages it’s very profitable business so why leave it
To chance why let your competitors get all the birthday business so again the birthday club is a done for you program all you have to do is check out www dot jointhe birthday club.com birth Rockstar it’s a great program if I still owned and operated restaurants today after decades it’s
Something I would definitely be doing it’s worth checking out join the birthday club.com SLB birthday Rockstar welcome back everyone to the restaurant Rockstar podcast so glad to have you here Dale welcome to the show how are you today terrific I’m terrific you’ve got a very exciting fast growing concept and
We’re going to talk all about that but before we do please tell us your hospitality back story where did it all start for you and you can take us back as far as it goes sure that case I’ll take it back 60 years to Cleveland grew
Up in Cleveland bold is a kid always enjoyed it played football went to colat so I I initially after business school I spent four years in Manhattan with a private Equity Group and was enjoying it but certainly wanted to get back to the principal side I had started an asphalt
Business when I was 17 in Cleveland and always tasted the entrepreneurial side I was going to buy a bowling alley in 1989 on the upper west side and coin the name Pinstripes in 1989 bowling pin pinstrip suit myself and a couple friends we were going to do a bowling
Alley with quality upscale food and do it different in right and didn’t do it I got busy and then I left New York traveled went back to Europe and elsewhere and then after starting a pharmacy business that was combining prescription products with Homeopathy Etc I kept mentioning for 10
15 years this Pinstripes idea and finally said Life’s Too Short almost 20 years ago now and spent two years putting all the pieces together to start Pinstripes and we’ve been at it for almost 18 years now and we’ll talk about it but that’s the summary backstory wow
So you’ve got varied experience as well as business skills and that made all the difference for me I applied business skills to a business that is not traditionally run by mbas and a lot of people run restaurants but they don’t necessarily run businesses and that’s a
Paradigm shift it’s a mindset shift I I just came back from New York City this past weekend I was speaking at the international restaurant and food service show at the Javit Center and ironically I knew this was an upcoming podcast episode and we were visiting a
Friend in New Jersey last Saturday and I drove through pamis and there’s Pinstripes and I’m like wow how ironic there it is and it’s right next to the highway and it was this big building and it looked so appealing from the road and I had a very general idea of what it was
All about we’re going to dive into the concept A little bit more but I thought that was a little ironic but anyway thank you very much for sharing that story when I owned restaurants I didn’t run a restaurant I ran a business but my products were not food and drink they
Were entertainment consistency and a whole lot of good times and I know that’s what Pinstripes is delivering let’s talk about some of the key learnings that early in your career regardless of the industry that made a difference for you that you’ve applied to this concept key learnings that that
Goes back a number of years certainly you have to have a passion for what you do so part of the magic of Whole Foods back in the early days where the the team members cared about food Home Depot with Bernie Marcus and and Arthur Blank did they hired Tradesmen that cared
About Lumber and Nails Etc and that matters in our case I mean we I I stole the term from the former CEO of Trader Joe’s John Shields when we hire team members we tell a lot of our team if you’re not having fun leave because if
You’re not having fun we happen to be in the hospitality entertainment business and our guests come to enjoy phenomenal food and have fun but if our team members aren’t having fun it’s not the right fit and if they don’t have a passion for either preparing phenomenal
Food or allowing guests to have just a phenomenal memory or experience then it’s not the right fit so passion matters a lot we we can take team members that maybe don’t have a background in Hospitality I didn’t and if you just care it it it matters I I
Think one of the other call it key takeaways is a fun game we at times play we play for Perfection when when our managers or our team members are in the venue Perfection is everything from the temperature to the lighting to the level of music do the venue clean and and the
Table set up and is the food perfect and if that if if you raise the bar high as such then it gets a little fun and people appreciate high standards and if you don’t care come back to the passion issue then you don’t then you don’t set
The standards high enough and then you get into a death spiral and in whatever industry it is yeah I think important to have the passion but also to want to do something phenomenally well that’s a competitive Advantage right there because when your guests walk in the
Door they know if a restaurant or a business is dialed and running in all cylinders versus that Controlled Chaos and I think setting that bar for Perfection holding your team accountable to those standards and delivering amazing Hospitality it was the key to my success I’m sure it is to yours let’s
Talk about going back 18 years ago the early history of Pinstripes we talk about the inspiration and the vision that you had a long time ago you’re in private Equity the Pinstripes thing you were a Big Bowler my childhood was every birthday party was at a bowling alley it
Was back then it was those Brunswick Lanes when it wasn’t candle pin it was all about big balls and every one of my friends would have their birthday parties there and I would too all the way through high school that was a big deal and it was a lot of fun and then
Bowling lost this cache it used to be a huge Sport and it and now it’s back which is amazing but 18 years ago you had this vision and then you decided let’s do this what were some of the early challenges or even setbacks to getting that concept of fruition in your first
Location yeah so to put in context 18 years ago yes our first location we built ground up in in the suburbs of Chicago in the NorthShore part of the main inspiration at the time the president of Brunswick at the time suggested I read a book called bowling a
Loan that and mind you we opened May 2000 ended up being two months before the iPhone was introduced so all the sensitivities about connecting and spending quality time together this book bowling alone yeah was written by Harvard Economist 600 page dense book that tracked back then the decline in
PTA attendance the decline in voting basically the decline in people spending quality time together and and that’s just been exacerbated with technology and the iPhone etc etc sure so the original plan and vision was to go back to the future and to your point try to break the stereotype of bowling that got
A little past itself years ago bowling was just fun and then too many of the traditional Lanes didn’t fix themselves up and it suffered from some of the stereotypes of dirty carpet or Smoky environment so we tried to do that differently it certainly caught people’s attention the challenge in the early
Days and and at times still the challenge is we’re constantly having to break the stereotype that yes we’re a bowling facility and yes we have Bachi but the expectation is that if you’re in the entertainment business the food must be just okay because it’s the exception of the rule to have phenomenal Cuisine
Amongst entertainment golf Shack Main Event a host of others play in the space and and our challenge was we wanted to have food that is extraordinarily high quality Hillstone Houston’s equivalent that’s hard to do and so it took time it took time it still takes time to break
That stereotype and and break what Alfred talin referred to years ago is that threshold resistance to get people to come to a mall Once Upon a Time and to get people to come to Pinstripes for lunch for dinner for Sunday brunch and and view us as a restaurant with
Entertainment not a bowling alley with food and and that was a challenge and and at time still is a challenge but that was a key challenge in the early days yeah I totally see that there was also a trend and I I use that word because there are a lot of Concepts that
Used to be called etertainment that just have Flash and Sizzle and then they just didn’t have staying power and maybe that was because the food and the guest service or maybe the atmosphere is just tired okay we tried it once it was no big deal Rainforest Cafe comes to mind
Right they grew really fast and they were popular for a short time and then they fizzled out and now you’re talking about you call it experiential dining and it’s based around something that people can come together and share in addition to great food they can share great experiences and fun times and it’s
Got broad appeal it’s kids it’s teenagers it’s adults it’s people who Bowl it’s people who’ve never bowled before it’s maybe introducing someone who bowls to bot I mean you’re combining all that stuff but it’s seamlessly integrated into an experience I like that you call it experiential dining would you say that
It’s got legs it’s going to last because this feeling that you deliver and the experiences you deliver will never grow old no correct I I think two key issues one is in terms of lasting the goal for us from day one was to create an environment that is picture Napa Valley
Meets Tuscany and I know we were talking about zerod earlier in the Mator so that was always Division and admittedly Italian American Cuisine plays off the Bachi bowling and Italian American wine right but the feel that overall feel that Timeless rustic feel was always true north that that’s
Much different than flashy Neon or the example of Planet Hollywood and and some other Concepts that run the risk of trying too hard to be flashy and bright blue colors okay that can come and go piece number two is it’s not easy to play for Best in Class so what I mean by
That is uh we still don’t sell Red Bull never have and for the first eight years we didn’t serve shots so if somebody came to the to our bar and wanted a shot of vka or shot at tequila we didn’t want the wrong type of drinking so we love when
People drink and enjoy themselves but we wanted equality and again back to differentiate ourselves from some others that indiscriminately uh might serve whatever and mind you our liquor licenses allow us to stay open at two in the morning but I still believe what my mom said years ago generally speaking you only
Get in trouble after either midnight or 1 in the morning so good happens after midnight generally nothing good so we don’t have any problem doing last call on weekends at midnight and weekdays at maybe 9:30 10 o’clock because we open a location and want to be a part of the
Fabric of the community for 20 30 years not just do really well for two three years and then see sale sales start to decline so I our first location after 18 years sales have gone up every year sales are more than double what they were 17 years ago and and and it has
Staying bar as as a result but that’s not easy to do uh it’s not easy to do and we tried to do it well it’s interesting you say that because my very first restaurant was a Woodfired Pizzeria it was 80 seats to start later
Grew to a 100 seats but we tried to keep it simple because I didn’t know the restaurant business I knew business I didn’t know restaurants and we had Woodfired pizzas we had one pasta we had one salad and we had beer and wine only soft jasm music and we didn’t want that
Drinking crowd that so we didn’t have a full bar we used to have these Italian chicken pitches that we imported from Italy that we poured our wine in and then you would pour it and the wine would come out of the beak and it was like this really tame experience but in
Order to grow the business we suddenly had to go over to the dark side and bring in rock bands and full bar and shots and mug clubs and Steak and Sushi and pizza and we were everything to everybody and it was a rockus envir ironment most of the time when that
Dining room transitioned to nighttime and you know that sort of thing it got really crazy we used to call it the three- ring circus but you’ve been able to find that balance between increasing revenue and having a a venue that is familyfriendly all the time and not and
Avoiding some of those challenges the liquor liabilities of over serving people I got out of the business and sold it because things were starting to get a little crazy and when you’ve got really good customers that are in your place four and five times a week but
Some of them have some of these challenges and you can’t over serve them legally yet they are your best customers it’s I couldn’t handle that anymore that was a really good transition it’s a tough balance and keep in mind with in our business Roger almost half our
Business is private events yeah so the private events both social and corporate weddings birthday parties Bar Mitzvah 1500 person corporate events the fun challenge is Maring that qualitatively with the call it open plane non-event business so back to that example yes you might come to p stries
On a Saturday night and there’s a 200 person wedding alongside an 80-year-old birthday party and a six-year-old birthday party and the bars full and the beastro full and it all needs to be choreographed together so that wedding party doesn’t want to walk in and see shots flying at the bar and just the
Wrong crowd it to work together and and we try to do that we try to do that wow that takes a lot of staff and consistent experiences across different types of from events to small private parties to serving the everyday public playing games and eating your Cuisine how many people does that
Require in a typical location yeah so we have generally about 120 to 140 team members each location full-time part-time we’ve got about 2,000 team members now between our 16 open locations and a few more soon opening in the works um and admittedly just to share the other major
Learning back to your first question everything we do you’ll never hear me or our team referred to any team members as employees so thank you it’s word yeah we I don’t know if you either recently saw the movie or ever read the book boys in
The boat cloy just I want to see that movie yeah it’s on my list it looks really inspiring yeah yeah the the the movie is good the book is phenomenal phenomenal and for the tip we’ve been we’ve been talking amongst our team now for about nine 10 years after I first
Stumbled across and read the book almost every week and emails are otherwise the term just let’s row together is extremely important so the restaurant business some of the normal Strife between back of house front of house and now our case the event team if you don’t
Do it you’ve got all kinds of drama and problems and we don’t always do it right but we certainly tried to Road together and when it when you really do that it’s magical and fun so I’m hearing leadership but I’m also hearing fun and when you combine those two things and
Give people opportunities then they tend to stay and there’s longevity I mean this a lot of this industry is still struggling with labor right now but it seems like you may not be having as big a challenge because you’re providing a really exciting Dynamic environment where like-minded people come together
To work and it’s as much fun working as it is being a guest playing and eating would you say that’s true are you having any challenges there operators and managers my restaurants were all about delivering experiences and creating memorable events you might say we curated experiences that exceeded Our
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Certainly had some challenges but we’ve navigated the the people front I think quite well I mean piece number one is we have a very strong tenur culture yes I started the business 18 years ago Chris our coo has been with me 18 and a half years so he came on board 10 months
Before we opened lead our chief people officer came on board six weeks after that 18 years Caesar our executive chef has been with me and us now 13 14 years Brent and Gary our two regional directors 16 17 years respectively that tight culture helps set the true north and
Then yes the a lot of the growth prospects makes it easier to retain and keep a lot of our managers and salary team members and then we just have to work a little harder nowadays to find team members there’s a lot of people postco that exited the restaurant
Business and found it easier to work from there’s nothing remote about providing phenomal service in the restaurant business you have to back to the passion issue enjoy it so we just have to work a little harder and call a few more people and train a little
Better but we we’ve never not open for lunch or had to cut back hours because we can’t find team members never that’s wonderful what a great position to be in and yeah I can totally imagine that the team chemistry and the respect that they have for each other and just what a fun
Place like when there’s so much is happening in the concept at any given time how can you help it not be swept up in the whole excitement of it all what about P success factors your concept you talked about excellent dining like not just food but really and Perfection that
Takes a lot to achieve and you mentioned Caesar’s been with you for so long so he’s obviously leading an outstanding team of kitchen people and bringing them up and you have an Italian-American menu so tell us about the menu a little bit what’s what are some of the key items
That that people just love sure so first to put in context our venues are large so these are 25 to 35,000 square foot almost invariably two level spaces and that’s the pure indoor space and then every location we have outdoor patios sometimes on two levels so there’s a CTO
Solle almost Willy Wonka fun adventure feel when you’re at Pinstripes that that is partially the decor but also two levels there’s just an excitement you may come into our venue and walk in and see Bachi to the left bowling to the right bar beastro outdoor patio walk
Upstairs and see banquet space and more bowling or Bodi so there’s just an adventure excitement because it’s not a traditional restaurant where it’s somewhat obviously a bar and a beastro and onedimensional as such there’s a little of that surprise and delight at Pinstripes the music is beautiful and
The lights might be dim that the music level never gets in the way of people talking amongst themselves so we try not to overdo the volume of the music we want it to complement the experience our our service is certainly a differentiator our team members and and how they’re handling the guest our
Food back to that whole discussion scratch kitchen we make our own pizza dough we make some of our own pastas we make our soups we make our own gelato soret so our food is really good our wi craft beers are great yeah you got gelato too that’s wonderful no we make no we’re
Rolling out Ben and cherries so pasta Chell with that’s my favorite by the way I love that that’s my favorite flavor strell Str strelli is hands down the best hands down and then bot and bowling right so the gaming elements we intentionally do the two so to put in
Context there’s no video games there’s no darts there’s no shuffle board there’s no ping pong so we we keep it just to those two call it competitive socializing games with the commonality of rolling a ball and having fun and then marketing is the other call it matrical sauce that whether it’s in the
Venue queuing certain messages or certainly how we’re marketing outside of the venue matters just the overall brand messaging plays into what we do so that gives you intended a flavor um of of all the different pieces so one of the biggest challenges in our business is maximizing table
Turns say and throughput and providing experiences to guests so that they enjoy the experience without feeling rushed yet when there’s a line out the door you don’t want people camping we call it 2hour experiences now suddenly you’re combining food with bowling and Bachi are you obviously it helps to huge
30,000 squ foot venues but are people waiting to get into the experience how long is the average person or group staying playing bowling or botchy and eating and you’re able to turn those people over and get more people in like how do you maximize throughput in such a
Huge operation that’s doing so much but it seems like it’s time intensive to play to bowl I know I bowl so I understand that how’s that work yep no great question I’ll give you two answers one on the call it gaming side it’s distinguish from call it the dining side
So first of all on the private event side when we host and pre-book an event we we might book a wedding of bar mitzvah six months out and that’s somewhat understood they they might have the ballroom space for four hours they might have bowling lanes some of them
For an hour that that those Rules of Engagement are pretty clean and clear for bowling and Bachi um it it is intensely Inventory management coupled with Dynamic price on a busy Saturday night there’s the scarcity of bowling lanes so yes we generally put aside lanes for an hour or
Two and if you are our guests pay for an hour or two so at the end of two hours generally speaking you do need to come off the lane because we have someone else coming on the Wayan for the gaming it it matters because we we’ve got to somewhat a little more
Stay on the clock contrast that with call it tra the traditional restaurant lunch and dinner no problem if somebody wants to camp and sit in our beastro for two three hours all for it I’ve joked to some customers or guests that are there at night for dinner and they’re there
For two hours three hours four hours and they said do you need the table literally if they want to spend the night they’ll bring you eggs in the morning other restaurants did strategy they don’t sell dessert because they want to turn the tables faster or they’re bothering the table because of
Turn Turn we don’t do that if somebody wants to lounge and take their time at pin stripes hats off we’ve got large enough venues and we can find Gally speaking space for others but I’ve literally I’ve seen people on the Bachi court with grandmothers asleep in a comfortable leather lounge chair of ours
That’s beautiful if the grandmother grandfather wants to rest in take a nap while the three generations are drinking and playing Bachi and having fun together terrific and if that means they’re going to camp out and spend another 45 minutes in that seat all the power to them you’re not going to see us
Zapping them and say hey sorry can you wake Grandma up we need that we need that chair that’s not gonna happen at bit Stripes no no I never took reservations in my businesses because it was always first come first serve I found that most efficient in serving the
Maximum number of people people because there’s some challenges with reservations people don’t show up on time two people walk in when it’s a reservation for eight now you’re waiting for the others and it slows things down do you take walk-ins do you take reservations do you have a hybrid of
Both like how does that work we do have a hybrid of both so on the gaming side so one reason we migrated from open table for example to we we we happen to currently use seven rooms Open Table would not allow us to take online gaming bowling Bachi reservations and that was
Problematic because we wanted to some of our entertainment peers were doing so so we do take it’s back to the inventory management for gaming so if we have 18 bowling lanes if if if we let the event team take all 18 lanes and book parties on Friday Saturday night they would
Gobble up and take all 18 Lanes so we have to try to keep a certain number of lanes open for kind of Walkin and or a c certain number of the bowling lane available inventory online to book an online reservation so that’s part of the choreographing of the inventory but no
Lunch and dinner love taking reservations preco we used to not take reservations on our outdoor patios because it times the complexity of if you take a reservation for a patio you can sometimes be in the weather business if it starts raining what do you do well we learned during covid people
Really enjoy sitting on the outdoor patios and we did a very robust business on our patios and so now we take reservations on the patios and high class problem if we’re busy with reservations and it starts raining we’ll make some adjustments so we but yes some restaurants don’t take reservations we
We do and need to and and it gives you visibility for labor scheduling and a lot of other elements as well that helps build the business tell us about marketing strategy and what’s proven to work for you and obviously when I say this there’s so many aspects to marketing there’s social media there’s
Influencers there’s cab drivers and hotel conges and there’s traditional advertising but I’m sure it’s so important to you to have trackable marketing programs that you know that are delivering Roi what is your strategy and what works yeah um first of all because our business has that heavy comp component
Of the private event side of our business on the private event side the digital spend for Google adword and other equivalent spends to drive lead generation that marketing spend is very meaningful and very important because it drives leads and adly that’s just part of a foral marketing we’re effectively
Marketing the ability of us to host events and then trying to convert those leads so we we’ve for years now leaned into that smart marketing spend to drive leads we also again on the event side of our business quite uniquely so we have three four five event sales team members
Generally per location onsite booking events every day we don’t do it centralized like some other Concepts so that is a marketing effort those are or team members on the phone or online or outboarding every day touching the communities and businesses to book events and and when we do it right that
Becomes a flywheel that helps build the non-event side of our business and then we’re certainly uh both on the digital side doing a lot of other digital advertising to drive reservations to drive funnel awareness we also do a considerable amount of local store marketing Guerilla Market marketing touching the concierges at
Hotels and visiting the malls that surround us telling our story we’ve done some billboard in the past we’ve done some direct mail on occasion we don’t do radio generally speaking we certainly don’t do television we’re not at a scale yet to do we do very little newspaper we
Did a little more years ago so it’s a digital heavy Focus coupled with a lot of boots on the ground event team gorilla team that all drives a lot of our marketing efforts I look at your locations and they’re like giant Billboards for a fun
Time out so it almost is it no it is a marketing Avenue unto itself to have a 30,000 sqt facility Pinstripes you can’t miss it how do you pick the location so that they’re highly visible I I think I told you that I drove by your pamis
Location it was right next to the highway I couldn’t miss it I’m like there it is wow that looks like an amazing place to go so that’s marketing but how do you find those spaces that are 30,000 square feet in great locations that become marketing Vehicles unto
Themselves the whole call it real estate strategy back in the early days call it 18 19 years ago the first strategic debate internally myself and our early board was if the one extreme do we expand like Lifetime Fitness Maas where somewhat of a standalone are we unique enough that feel the dreams
People will find us as distinguished from yeah do we just get right in the mix do we go to Garden State Plaza aside from the visibility off of Interstate 4 do we get in the mix amongst foot traffic and other likeminded co-tenants we have skewed over the last number of
Years increasingly we like to be in the mix and the caveat there is we want to be in the mix in the right high quality like lifestyle centers or malls so the whole Amazon effect and the bifurcation of in our view the a quality malls are
Going to get better and those B minus or C or D Mall properties are going to get killed and so we like to be Garden Spate Plaza is a phenomenal example so we took over the uniglow phace Westfield’s in the midst of an additional $700 million expansion on the other side of them
Allall redeveloping with residential and all kinds of exciting offerings and they’re going to continue to upgrade our side those are the exciting properties and when we do those yeah that that large billboard feel and facade of Pinstripes attracts a lot of attention it certainly helps the mall property and other
Tenants and co-tenants but to your point yeah love that you drove by and or pulled up and you saw some of the huge signage that that we also put even a little on other side of space just until some of the tenants are opening it’s a powerful form of marketing for us yes
You certainly have the 30,000 foot CEO view of your company and you have Specialists within your company I’m sure you have a CFO and you’ve got Chief marketing officers and all these people and you said that you’ve got dedicated salespeople for event space and you’re obviously directing these people from
Above and you’re looking at reports let’s switch to finances for a moment what are the key performance indicators that mean the most to you and you’re a former Finance guy too so this must mean a lot to you and maintaining I hate to use the word quotas but consistency
Among locations to be meeting certain targets with those kpis let’s talk about some of those yeah no absolutely so if I start off top same store sales comps we call one of our reports the Bible report extremely important so we track same store sales first for our 13 Legacy locations
That we can certainly compare obviously PRI years but also stat comps and we track it open play versus events because we need to like to see the trends amongst the two so that that gets a lot of attention and kpi or otherwise what the trends are and what’s up and down
The location and the aggregate matters and and then informs a lot of marketing decisions and other decisions that then much the same on the sales level particularly with the newer locations we are tracking that sales performance versus budget versus expectations compant discounts constantly tracking both the positive
And negative Food liquor costs so the cogs equation yeah we take inventure every month and we keep we keep a very close eye on on on cost of good soil both on the Food and Liquor front we also keep a close eye on gaming bowling Bachi is a percentage of sales so the
Higher or more business we do gaming that’s 100% gross profit so gaming is increased for us from 181 19% to already 23 getting close to 24 projection mapping some added technology overlay that we’re planning on introducing in the next X number of months could take that 23 up to 25 30%
Plus which could be very lucrative and then on the expense line we we we keep a very close eye on our some of our fixed salary costs at the store level our hourly cost both front of house back of house and all kinds of initiatives to control labor retention and training
Play into it and then all the expense line so we all of that plays into what’s the store contribution dollar amount in margin at the store level and then now that we’re public and we always did keep a close eye on sgna we try to run things smart
And tight which we do there’s no assistants or secretary at pen strives we still office out of our first location in Northbrook you’re not seeing myself or our team sitting in some Ivory Tower offsite we’re in the venue or or venues not esoterically sitting in in an office building somewhere those are the
Key things we look at and then behind the scenes on the marketing front we’re looking at the marketing spend and what the ROI is to the extent we can track reservations or event leads to really get a sense are we spending money that’s giving us a fair return
Aside from some of the overall awareness issues and we’re very granular in how we track that as well since the pandemic a lot of this industry has struggled with maintaining margins in traditionally a low margin business have have you been able to maintain your margins with the highest labor costs ever and inflation
And all those things without just continually raising prices where the value proposition is lost that’s a balance how have you handled that and do you even mind sharing what the average margin is on a typical location for pin strips yeah so a couple answers so the
First answer is the answer is no but in a positive way so the answer is have we had trouble keeping margins no we’ve actually our margins have improved postco so for one our event business continues to grow so the private event side of our business is very lucrative
So food costs labor liquor costs lower than on the so if we’re doing a 200 person corporate event that’s a lip to leier to execute than 54 tops labor Wise food cost wise that’s helped we’ve certainly gotten some added scale benefits in some of our purchasing and
Even on the labor front we just continue to get smarter so we’ve made some smart moves in terms of open close times in terms of some staffing levels and we just train team members better so we’re seeing a lot of efficiencies some of the information that we put out there we
Generally expect any new location year two to do 9 million plus in sales at least 17% store contribution margin so at the store level we have some locations that don’t do 90 million but do already 12 or 13 million in sales where store contribution is 25 to 30% and that’s after fully encumbered
Occupancy rent unlike some other peers we don’t own our land we don’t own the building so all of the gross occupancy costs are included before call it our store contribution but those are our general targets when locations are called doing some attractive sales you know I think that’s also an advantage
Because there is a pitfall to leasing a space versus owning and controlling your destiny yet I would imagine in your locations it’s no one wants to lose that lease because it would be really hard to replicate a new tenant that could come in and assimilate or take over that much
Space so you must have long-term really secure leases at reasonable rates that are negotiated of course but there’s leverage there would you say that’s true no we do have leverage not debt leverage per se but we do I mean landlords like us for what excitement we
Bring to a lot of these projects and they’ve also provided some very attractive tenant Improvement monies tened approvement allowances towards the build out of our space so in every whether it’s a 10 12 initial year term and option whatever I’m wrestling in terms of the rent that we pay factors in
The quite attractive tenant Improvement monies that landlords also provide because we do bring a lot of excitement particularly our ability to program and use second level space that’s very attractive to a lot of landlords that are taking back to Sears or Macy’s or JC Penny’s boxes that traditionally have
Two three levels and not easy to put tenants often on a second level space right we like taking some second level space and that helps the discussions negotiations considerably fantastic Pinstripes is a prime example of multiple profit centers and so many operators I hugely recommend bringing in as many as possible and not
Just selling food and drink so obviously you’ve got bowling you’ve got bot you’ve got private events you’ve got the public coming in ordering food and drink and perhaps not bowling or playing botch outdoor patios I’m sure you’ve got a retail merchandise program as well right
Do you sell lots of retail we we we sell to date very little oh tell me uh we do have plans to sell more we’ve considered bottling our marinara sauce and certain other products possibly to do something creative with supermarkets so stay tuned the other piece that we are going to
Start pushing more aggressively is off premise aditt in the early days because what we do is so unique we we aired on the side of needing and wanting people to come in and experience it because we were a young brand um now that our brand awareness is considerably broader um
We’re pushing that off premise both with Partners the door Dash GrubHub Uber Eats equivalent as well native our our own Olo equivalent ordering online but that off premise piece we’re going to be have active efforts going on as we speak to drive additional sales in off- premise
Because to your point the more sales opportunities profit centers within the venue the better as long as we choreograph them all the right way thank you we’re pushing on that off premise so Dale 16 locations now four in the pipeline and what’s the big picture are you going National in every Major Market
With this and how long do you anticipate that taking and what’s next after that yeah so we we went public just about two months ago always planned on doing so and always planned on myself and the team doing this for another 20 30 years so back to the whole discussion of
Having fun and passionately enjoying what we’re doing we want to keep doing it so we we whites space opportunity for us in the US we want to open 150 some Pinstripes locations all over the country all company-owned in the US and we’ll open six to 80 years
So th this calendar 24 will end up opening six plus we’re filling the pipeline as we speak for calendar 25 and 26 so it’s going to be in that six to 80 year that’s less a constraint of capital and mostly finding the quality sites and having the right culture and team to
Open them so you’re not going to see us opening 20 30 locations a year we don’t need to these are Big locations that can do big sales profit numbers in 6 to8 a year we can create some very substantial value and then overseas been looking overseas for six seven years already and
Overseas a little different we’ll look to do at least a 100 whether it’s London Tel Aviv Mexico City Dubai with Partners so that’ll be more of an asset like smart partnership that won’t detract from the match we’re doing the states and the heavy lifting of opening sites
And all of our team focus in the US but a lot of these experiential Trends they’re happening in real time overseas and and we’ve been sought out for years and we’re in some discussions already to forge some exciting Partnerships and do our magic overseas as well so that’s the
To over overall plan does your concept translate to Italy because you’re Italian-American as much as we’ve taken so many cues from Italy and so many restaurant Concepts here in America because people in America Embrace that culture and the food and the wine but does a location in Milan ever make sense
Or a big Center Milan Milan’s a good example yes milalan has industry it certainly has the residential piece it’s got It’s got a Vibrance to it so we we certainly could do something in Italy we certainly could do something in the UK and Spain that there’s a lot of
Countries that that have the same consumer needs and also have the same really real estate developer needs to transform their lifestyle centers or properties it all the same Trends all our view all the same Trends were lagging the US preco by three four years covid hits and everyone in the world you
Have a choice so everybody was transacting online retailers saw the pressure from it and so those the lag time arguably is almost eliminated so the are real in these overseas countries and there’s already entertainment dining Concepts doing their magic in the UK and Dubai and elsewhere and Canada Etc so
We’re going to look to capitalize on those same Trends overseas fantastic Dale you are a super inspired leader and CEO you got a really Dynamic concept I’m really just moved by everything that you’ve achieved so far and the big vision of what’s going to happen in the future I wish you the best
Of success I appreciate it thanks for the time and no enjoyed it enjoyed it that was the restaurant rockar podcast thanks so much to our audience for tuning in thank you so much to our sponsors we can’t wait to see you in the next episode everyone stay tuned and
Stay well rockstar I got to tell you it really pains me to see restaurants fail and it pains me just as much to see restaurants with shrinking margins with Rising costs and being tied to their business business 247 because they can’t afford to pay what I call a leader or
Someone to help them run their business and that is so important today you know working on your business versus in the business I travel the country I’ve coached lots of restaurants I speak I speak to lots of different restaurant people and I hear the same thing why
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But additional profit centers it’s not just about food and drink and selling those things it’s about creating a real brand and running a business and everything I’m talking about is in the academy so check it out restaurant rockstar.com thanks so much for listening we’ll see you in the next
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