HUNGRY.

 Today’s poddy is sponsored by Square. Square is the all-in-one restaurant tech platform designed to streamline operations and give hospitality business owners the time back to focus on growth. Square is Big In Restaurants - which is the name of its latest UK marketing campaign - offering everything you need for day-to-day service, including Square’s payments, point of sale and reporting capabilities. Whether you’re a single-location FSR, a multilocation QSR, a bar or a multi-concept restaurant, improve the flow of orders and find more ways to keep profit in your pocket. For more information visit  👉 squareup.com

This episode needs no introduction.

Michel Roux Jr. is a LIVING LEGEND.

We dive deep into the business side of running one of World’s most successful restaurants, Le Gavroche.

Enjoy

ON THE MENU:

1. Albert Roux’s Brutal Honesty Rule: “people are too scared to be brutally honest with their staff”
2. How to become World Class at LITERALLY anything… “what you practice in private, you’re praised for in public”
3. How to manage geniuses with egos - Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, Marcus Wareing
4. Workhorses + Egos = Effective Team.. “partner egos with introverts to get the best of your team”
5. Le Gavroche’s Symphony of Service Rule… “every employee must work in every job to understand the total knowledge knowledge”
6. Head Chefs Must be Pot washers… “every employee must work in different jobs to understand the knowledge of the whole team”
7. Polish Your Shoes Rule… “be proud of what you do. how you do one thing is how you do everything”
8. Le Gavroche’s famous Champagne Board Meeting Principles: Be all over your numbers + constantly ask how can we make this better?
9. Dinner Jacket Rule “Reinvention” Rule: constantly adapt + reinvent as culture changes
10. Embrace Hardship. Hardship breeds fulfilment.
11. Hug Your Friends + Call Your Parents Rule. Your Work isn’t everything.
12. Ernest Sheckleton “By Endurance We Conquer”… Don’t Find Your Career. Find Your Way of Life. Way of Life = Longevity.
13. Guest vs. Customer Rule… “there’s a big difference between a guest and a customer”… different framing + words = different behaviours.

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Julian said every mistake he ever made boiled down to two things...

When you lose sight of these two core relationships...

Product <> Customer.

Simplicity <> Complexity.

Get these right.

LITERALLY everything else falls into place.

ON THE MENU:

• How to Scale from 7 to 17 to 70 Sites… “70% of issues you’ll face is losing focus product and customer”
• Founder Mode = Just make the product better. Never stop making your product better. Complexity is Organisational Cancer. Constantly find simplicity in complexity.
• Barnacles on a Boat Rule: constantly remove complexity.
• Why Simplicity is HARD, complexity is EASY.
• ITSU’s Unique Hiring Policy, the 4 qualities
  •     I care
  •     I take pride
  •     I want to grow
  •     I build trust
• Why Product is always bigger than the founder and the team
• ITSU Character Qualities
• Be thankful
• Be there
• Be accountable
• Be brave
• Be there. Stay close to your customers, always.
• Never let bad negative energy get in the way of pursuing excellence
• Brand Building is a very simple formula: customers + product ripped up lost touch of simple formula of product & customer
• Be objective and truthful about your product + Inconvenient truth: your product is everything
• Human energy oils the wheels of the machine
• Seth Godin: This is crap = this is I care
• Why you must stick with hard that’s where Excellence is built

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Will Murray and Jack Croft are like NO ONE ELSE.
Yes, incredible chefs - serving 10/10 BANGING food,

But, also GENIUS marketeers,

They RIPPED UP the rule book,

Zigged when everyone Zagged.

Built Fallow, Fowl, Roe to enormously successful restaurants,

The World has changed.

The way to build a successful restaurant has changed, too.

Our conversation shows you how.

ON THE MENU:

1. Why Canary Wharf is the Craziest place to open a Restaurant: “lean into site surprises + “adapt to your customers + environment”
2. Why You Must Deliberately put yourself in the shit… “remember at your worst you can still do your best”
3. Cook to Chef to Restauranteur Evolution: “Everything is a positive learning experience” + harness the power of fight or flight
4. Why Your Job as The Restauranteur is the Orchestrator of Energy “Pick high energy> everything”
5. Customers Sixth Sense Rule: “…customers can just tell when the team is unhappy”
6. 900 Cover Sunday‘s Rule = Personal pride + show your team you can get hands dirty
7. How to Use Media to get Bums on Seats: the food must meet the expectation and ACTUALLY taste good
8. Why negativity is SO EASY, yet, positivity is SO HARD… positivity is the right choice
9. How DINNER & Ashley Palmer Watts taught Will & Jack Systems. Systems = Volume + Consistency
10. Why Your Inner Critic is Your Secret Weapon: You’re thick skinned because no one is a greater critic than you
11. Clucking Off Hour Chicken Wings: Always find creative way to pack out your restuarant.
12. Blue Roll On Brand Rule: constantly look for ways to cut money that’s also on brand “conscious creativity”
13. Why Fallow Won’t Put Up Their Prices in 2025: just sell more roasts
14. Remember Everyone you admire is doing way more work behind the scenes than you think
15. The Genius Reason Fallow Give Out Free Tequilla Shots to Customers.. Control the Energy”
16. Ruthless Transparency = Radical Trust: Why Fallow tell customers gross margin %’s
17. Keep it Moving. Always Keep It Moving

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Founders, please don’t swap your PURPOSE for PROZAC.

“when you exit…you’re drowning in the 3 D’s”.

“Divorced, Depressed, Dyslexic” - Guy Singh-Watson.

Guy breaks ALL the brand building rules Riverford Organic.

Famously, told the supermarkets to F*CK OFF.

Unapologetically, gave away over 26% of his exit dough BACK to the team.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this poddy!!

ON THE MENU:

1. Nature & Brand Building Lessons: Humility + Strength of Diversity + Collectivism
2. Why Richard Dawkins “Selfish-Gene” is WRONG… “collectivism and collaboration happens in nature….we’re not competing all the time”
3. Charles Darwin’s “Natural Selection” + Survival of The Fittest Brand “Diversity builds the fittest brand”
4. Founders ACCEPT you have NO CONTROL “…we are just a cork being kicked down the stream” but also ACCEPT you control everything
5. How Founders can use their Demons wisely “mental breakdowns are doors to epiphany”
6. Why Creativity is overthinking used positively and Anxiety is overthinking used negatively
7. Why Rich People are Tw*ts and Boring Company
8. Why Neo-Liberalism Religion has ruined the world “…money became a proxy for love”
9. Why Self-Love = Accepting you don’t HAVE to be perfect
10. Why Riverford IGNORE all traditional marketing… “the best marketing is DIFFERENT story telling” + NEVER let sales dictate creative
11. The Human Condition isn’t the Neo-Liberal Meta-Narrative: Macro Neo-Liberal, Micro Collectivist
12. Jonathan Hiadts: “90% chimp, 10% Bee” brand building theory

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
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Loved this one with Aussie Donnie Troy from Coqfighter.
The early stage of the brand building journey is fun.
you’re so naive,
everything is new
everything is fresh
It’s better than your “…old boring corporate job”
But, at some point, it becomes hard.
Unimaginably hard.
Doubt soars in.
Confidence wanes
The joy fades a little.
Paul Graham calls it The Trough of Sorrow
This episode will help you through Your Trough of Sorrow
With a healthy seasoning of marketing, fried chicken and Lynard Skynard “free bird”
Huge thanks to my boy for setting this one up.

ON THE MENU:

1. Why going ALL IN on your life’s work will feel like “Work feels like play but also pain”
2. Nassim Taleb’s Barbell strategy for successful fried chicken shop: Micro/Macro, Systems/customer flair
3. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: why you need peace from mind vs. peace of mind
4. Why you must treat every part of your business as a “community”
5. Too Many Stickers Rule: Why Bottom Up Leadership ALWAYS beats Top Down
6. Seth Godin Competitors vs Colleagues Rule: Don’t hate your competitors
7. Why London is The Best City to Launch a Food & Drink Brand
8. A La Carte Fried Chicken Menu + Alex Smith’s Unique Points of Disagreement Rule
9. Brand Building Lessons from Harley Davidson “offer people Status and Affiliation”

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out