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Serves You Right
Serves You Right episodes
- #146 Mirak Kazanjian: The Food Truck Never Forced Him to Delegate...the Restaurant Did
If you think running a food truck means parking, opening the window and collecting cash, a Spokane winter will correct you fast. And if nothing ever forces you to delegate, you’ll grind yourself into the ground before you notice. Mirak Kazanjian grew up inside Los Angeles’ Armenian community. He moved to Spokane for college and couldn’t find a single plate of the food he grew up on. So he taught himself, one batch of stuffed grape leaves at a time, launched the Skewers food truck in 2016, and later took over a closing restaurant’s downtown space to open Skewers, an Armenian-Lebanese restaurant with an all-Armenian wine and spirits list.
Expect to Learn:
- The hidden grind of a food truck nobody budgets for, and why a truck is still easier to walk away from than a restaurant.
- What the food truck let him avoid for seven years, and why the restaurant finally forced him to fix it.
- How an Armenian Christmas dinner that couldn’t fill the room in year one now sells out without advertising.
Links:
- Skewers
- Skewers on Instagram: @skewersspokane
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
48 min - #145 Bonus Episode: Andrew on the Instant Payments Podcast
Earlier this year I sat down with Tal Clark, CEO of Instant Financial, on the Instant Payments Podcast. We went back to the beginning: my first restaurant job at 15 in a small Texas spot, falling for classic cocktails and wine behind a bar in college, and working my way from server to GM at Mahogany Prime Steakhouse. I also break down what the Court of Master Sommeliers levels actually mean, how we hire and keep good people, and what a normal day running a high-end steakhouse looks like.
Links:
- The original episode: Instant Payments Podcast, Ep 17 Part 1
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
16 min - #144 Jackson Connery: He Opened a Restaurant With $6,000 in the Bank
Jackson Connery, founder of House of Brunch in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, traces his path from dishwasher at 15 to owner of two restaurants. He covers the 45 page business plan a bank turned down, using home equity as startup collateral, a 90 day buildout, 120 interviews for 20 hires, a seasonal menu that became a greatest hits menu, fully loaded labor targets, blended food cost strategy, and a staff 401k that crushed turnover.
Expect to learn:
- The hiring filter Jackson trusts more than any resume, and why every candidate still has to clear a second interview.
- The weekly report that turned years of runaway labor into a profit line he controls, and the exact target he chases.
- How to put caviar and lobster on a brunch menu without wrecking your food cost or charging $50 for eggs.
- Why changing your whole menu every three months can quietly cost you regulars
- What a 401k for every employee really costs a small restaurant group, and what it buys that no hiring ad can.
Links:
- House of Brunch
- Jackson Connery on American Express Business Blueprint
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
45 min - #143 Natalie Popplewell: Most Coffee Shops Die but 50 Vendors Keep Hers Alive
If your plan for a profitable coffee shop is better beans, a cuter menu and advice from people who have never run one, the math is already against you. Small town coffee shops close all the time because one revenue stream has to carry rent, utilities and payroll by itself. Natalie Popplewell and Kasey Headley of Niche Coffee and Shop in Denison, Texas built something different: a boutique and specialty coffee hybrid. Roughly 50 vendors rent booth space, consignment and resale clothing bring people through the door, and the café pays for the staff who give the owners their weekends back.
Expect to Learn:
- The tool that keeps 50 vendors trusting you with their products and their money.
- Why the hire that matters most has nothing to do with coffee skill.
- The cash cushion Kasey wishes he’d built before the second shop, and what it saves you the day someone quits.
- The mistake Natalie kept making as an owner for years, and the change that finally started fixing it.
Links:
- Niche Coffee and Shop
- Natalie on Instagram: @gingersnapnatalie
- Kasey on Instagram: @birdieandbrew
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
35 min - #142 Peer Larson: What One Question Exposes a Bad Job Before You Sign?
If your restaurant hiring plan is posting on Indeed and sorting resumes, you’re buried in quick apply noise. Peer Larson leads Posana Biltmore Park in Asheville for Mandara Hospitality Group, and he spent years as a hospitality recruiter. He breaks down how great restaurant managers really find, hire, train and keep hospitality workers. We get into interview red flags, the questions that expose a bad fit on both sides of the table, delegating without burning out your management team, giving feedback that lands, reading a P&L as a profit tool and not a report card, and why a calm GM sets the temperature for the whole shift.
Expect to Learn:
- The one question Peer asks every employer before he accepts a job, and the answer that tells him to run.
- The opening line Peer coaches his managers to use on angry guests
- The candidate red flags that end an interview, plus the one he quit caring about.
- How to tell whether you’re delegating too much or too little, and how to free yourself to “cruise at a higher altitude.”
- The copy and paste test that quietly cuts half your applicant pool before a single interview.
Links:
- Posana Restaurant
- Mandara Hospitality Group
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
51 min - #141 Linden Marno-Ferree: Books and Booze, a Master Class
If your plan to open a bar starts with breakfast, lunch, dinner and an espresso program, what kind of hell are you building for yourself? Bar ownership doesn’t reward the owner who offers the most. It rewards the owner with the clearest concept, the smallest footprint, and the discipline to obsess over details instead of glory. Linden Marno-Ferree, owner of The Reading Room, Chattanooga’s bookstore bar, got into hospitality at 30 and opened bars for other people. Then she built her own around used books, cocktails, mocktails, a tight wine list and a tea program nobody saw coming.
Expect to Learn::
- Why a smaller concept beats a bigger menu, and the things Linden refused to offer on purpose.
- The side door Linden used to stock 6,000 books before opening day, and how her team keeps the shelves full now.
- How an application Linden almost trashed turned into a job title she invented on the spot.
- The one thing Linden would tell herself before fundraising, and the filter she now runs on every piece of advice.
- How to turn your slowest night and your guests’ old books into traffic and revenue.
Links:
- The Reading Room
- Instagram: @thereadingroombar
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
41 min - #140 Nick & David: Cheese on Fried Rice to a James Beard Nomination
Chef Nick Wong and bar lead David Perez of Agnes & Sherman, Houston's James Beard nominated Asian American diner, both break down the back of house tip share that pays dishwashers, prep cooks, and line cooks more when the dining room gets slammed. We get into restaurant labor planning, the opening mistakes that cost real money in the first six weeks, training front and back of house staff on a menu with no reference point, batching cocktails for speed without dumbing them down, and why walking away from bad leases is the smartest call a new owner can make. If you run a restaurant, bar, or kitchen, this is for you.
Expect to learn:
- How Texas law lets you tip out your entire kitchen, and the one wage condition that unlocks it
- A training method for menus that customers, servers, and even cooks have no words for yet
- How one line in a mission statement screens out the wrong hires before the first interview
- The two pieces of equipment they bought cheap and replaced within weeks
Links:
- Agnes & Sherman (Sign up for the newsletter!)
- Agnes & Sherman on Instagram: @agnesandsherman
- Nick Wong: @_nickwong_
- David Perez: @dperez79
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
45 min - #139 Aaron Walters: 27 Seats, $28 a Glass, and Packed on Monday Nights
If you build your wine program around what's cheap to pour instead of what's worth tasting, you're teaching guests to expect less. You pay for it in dead bottles, flat sparkling wine and empty Monday nights. Today we have Aaron Walters, chef and owner of Muselet Champagne Bar in Bentonville, Arkansas. They break down how a 27 seat champagne bar runs a deep BTG list, sells bone dry Riesling to guests who swear they hate sweet wine, turns caviar into a viral hook, and fills seats on the one night every other restaurant is closed.
Expect to Learn:
- The one line of math Aaron uses to decide whether a bottle earns a spot on his by the glass list
- How to turn a guest who "hates sweet wine" into a Riesling buyer with a single pour
- How a tiny team learns a list full of nearly identical champagnes without drowning in tech sheets
- The lease, permit and liquor license traps that cost Aaron nearly three months before opening, and who you need on your side to avoid them
- The eight word exercise that stress tests any bar concept before you sign a lease
Links:
- Muselet Champagne Bar
- Muselet on Instagram: @muselet.nwa
- Aaron on Instagram: @grapesandgrits
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
1 hr 2 min - #138 Brian Hanson: Why Would a Bar Close Before Its Best Hours?
Post COVID demand is swinging back to Friday date nights and 1 AM closes. Guests are hunting deals again. The Florida operators Brian just talked to are down 10 to 20 percent and fighting a full blown happy hour war. Brian Hanson owns Independent Ice Co. He's an Executive Bourbon Steward, president of Maine Business Brokers, and a SCORE hospitality mentor. He joins Andrew to rebuild the fundamentals: happy hour as yield management, gamified restaurant loyalty programs, whiskey training for a 600 bottle back bar, draft cocktail execution, hiring in the age of Easy Apply, and the single point of failure that sinks new restaurant owners.
Expect to Learn:
- The three questions that decide whether your happy hour builds the business or bleeds it.
- The spend threshold loyalty structure a national chain has run for over a decade.
- How a seven person team stays fluent across 600 whiskeys without memorizing every proof.
- The three variables that make or break draft cocktails, and the gas mistake most bars keep making.
Links:
- Independent Ice Co., Portland, Maine: website, and email.
- CORE, Brian's mentor profile
- Stave & Thief Society, the bourbon certification Brian's staff hold
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
1 hr 6 min - #137 Adilene Camarena: Would You Trade Your Dream Business for a Paycheck?
Adeline Camarena survived one heck of a ride. She opened her bakery during COVID, lost most of her build out money, waited two years for a second location, then went viral on TikTok and Instagram and had to scale from three people to ten almost overnight. Her international dessert bakery in Waco, Texas now serves Nanaimo bars, brigadeiros, macarons, keto desserts and a banana pudding cheesecake that started as a backup plan.
Expect to learn:
- The three habits that protect your build out money from contractors who overcharge, stall, or vanish
- Why "it's just permits" isn’t always a good excuse
- The business structure mistake that had her paying taxes twice, and how to tell if your accountant is actually working for you
- How a small menu section she built for herself turned into something customers won't let her remove
- The hiring filter she uses on 200+ applicants, and the red flags that get a resume deleted on sight
Links:
- Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: Around the World Waco
- Around the World's Website
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- Steve Schneider & The Best Bar in North America
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
32 min
About Serves You Right
From the publisher's feed
Most bartenders are great at their jobs and have no idea what to do with that...
Nobody tells you that the skills behind the bar: reading people, building experiences, thinking fast under pressure, are actually worth something. They just hand you a shaker and hope you figure it out.
Serves You Right is for bartenders who are done drifting and ready to do something. Every episode, host Andrew Roy talks with the people who are currently doing something inspiring, and pulls out exactly how they did it.
Your career behind the bar is the starting point. Not the ceiling. Let's make some drinks!