Jeff Fuller on Family Ties to Foodservice, Expanding Eastward and Corporate Culture

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Interview between Rosanna Caira, publisher and editor of Foodservice and Hospitality magazine and Jeff Fuller, President and CEO of Joey Restaurant Group.

Rosanna Caira: Your father, Bus, must have had an impact on your career since he was the owner of the first A&W franchise in Canada. Can you talk about that?

Jeff Fuller: As far as I can remember, I’ve been around restaurants. We used to have a coffee shop concept called Fuller’s, and running behind the counter and pouring your own pop was a really cool deal, and it really stuck in my mind. I remember the A&W brand, of course. I [also] worked at a Mother’s Pizza when I was 14…. I’ve been inspired by both my father and my brother, Stan, [the owner of Earls Kitchen + Bar] who’s been a bit of a mentor, although a competitor these days. It’s a very addictive business. Most people come into the business with the intention to make some money while going to school, and they get hooked because it’s a fantastic way to make money and have a great social life.

 

RC: What is the most important lesson you learned from your father?

JF: There are a lot of lessons, but there’s always great wisdom with the experience he has. When I complain [about] how I missed this location, I should have been a bit more aggressive, he’ll say, ‘there’s always going to be another location.’ He’s a wonderful resource. I’ve also learned that if there’s a part of the business that you’re struggling with, you can’t get too fixated on it, you’ve got to keep working on the part that’s really working well.

 

RC: Can you talk about the birth of Joey Restaurants in 1992?

JF: The very first store was called Joey Tomato’s Kitchen, and there were three people involved in the creation of it, although I was less creative and more interested in the management of it. At 25, I was gung-ho. David Vance did the decor and the naming of it. It was very much a slapstick Italian concept. If there was anything innovative, it was the forno ovens that are now ubiquitous. So, that style of cooking pizza and stuff was quite popular and caught on right away. We had a chef by the name of Larry Stewart. He was very talented, but the first menu was rather ambitious. We had 10 prep charts, and I could see very quickly that this wasn’t going to be a solvent business very long. We were really busy, but we weren’t making a lot of money. Then we built a couple more stores, one in downtown Calgary, in the Eau Claire centre, which saved my bacon in the lean years, because it was really busy from day one and still is. Then, in 1995, we went from four to nine restaurants in just over six months. It was really good, because we didn’t actually build another restaurant until 1998 — I believe Barlow Trail opened in Calgary. [Then] there was a huge transition, [from] getting stuck working in the business to being able to work on the business and see it from a different angle, which is when we really endeavored to change the brand significantly. As we evolved the brand, we decided to move from just Italian — mostly pizza and pasta — to a more Mediterranean influence. And, as we opened the bandwidth, we were rewarded with sales. Then we thought, why put any restrictions/barriers on the bandwidth?

 

RC: Did you have to change how the company operated as you started expanding?

JF: We had a huge change in 1998 to 1999 when our value proposition changed. We went from being overly casual, and the price point was more family driven, to taking it a bit more premium, and we continued on that goal. So, it wasn’t that we were changing it as we were building in different regions, it was that the whole brand was under an evolution — a strong one. We did a renovation of a store in Calgary, and I think our sales were up 60 per cent. So, while it was a more expensive proposition to change a brand versus maybe trying to go after the value proposition
in the family sector, it paid off.

We made a transition in 1998. From 1992 to 1998, I was going to the school of how to build teams. But, the really big change, for me was — this is going to sound ridiculous — but I wanted to eat in my own restaurant, and be entertained in my own restaurant and be passionate about it. So, David Vance exited the business, and we found a great chef in Chris Mills, and then I went from being more of a manager stuck working in the business to starting to work on the vision of the business, and that was really inspiring. There were other people headed that direction as well, one of them being my brother. That also created competition that, to this day, has been very healthy.

 

RC: Can you talk about your company’s corporate culture?

JF: We’re really in the people game. It’s a bit cliché to talk about it, but it’s our number-1 focus. We may be considered top heavy with management, but it’s because every one of our chefs and GMs has come from within the organization — they’re steeped in the culture. We don’t sit and try and define the culture, it’s a by-product of our focus. We give a lot of leeway and empowerment, we encourage people to take risks, but we really do measure them by the people they surround themselves with. We’re a meritocracy. We post our schedules that way; we let the best players get the best shifts. When we have new opportunities we open post them, there’s an interview process — [employees] know where they stand with the competition within the company. So, it is the chess game that we are constantly talking about.

 

RC: How do you treat your employees differently than the competition?

JF: We have lots of programs — particularly the Red Seal program — to help cooks get out of the restaurant to get educated. We help them with knives, books or supplies and recognize them for those types of efforts. We’re taking 30 or 40 people to Italy this fall. We do these trips, between the GMs and chefs every other year, [and] it’s not just about being a tourist, there’s work involved. Most importantly, at the server level, a pat on the back is important recognition.

We have an awards’ ceremony every year that we call the JALA Awards (Joey Annual Leadership Awards).

 

RC: Joey is a casual chain, but it’s got an upscale feel. How do you achieve that?

JF: We want to push the envelope and keep our guys challenged…. One of the best things we’ve done — we were on the ninth floor in the Bentall Centre in Vancouver, and, as I was looking at the office space in the building, the realtor said, ‘BDC is moving out of the ground floor, do you want to put a restaurant there?’ and I went, ‘Yeah, I do.’ So, it’s been our test store, and we really work that hard. It’s an ongoing thing; it’s not an exact science. We look at our sales mixes, but we’re not infatuated with that. We realize that sometimes you have to have a loss leader. Each dish has its own story on our menu and some that have come off have resurfaced; we’ve tweaked them.

 

RC: What are some of the hot food trends your company has tapped into recently?

JF: Down the road, you’re going to have to define your caloric content. And, everybody in the business knows you’ve got a few items on the menu that will drop somebody’s jaw. So, we’re recognizing that. We’ve just released a salad under test called The 500. It’s a wonderful light salad with kale, barley and watermelon radish. We’ve endeavored to bring sushi on, and we’re going to go a little deeper in that role. We’re heading towards craft-type skill execution, as it’s a differentiator.

 

RC: Are you tapping into the gluten-free trend?

JF: Whenever we’ve gone with something strictly vegan or gluten-free it suffers on the sales mix, and it takes up territory. So, we’ve done a combination of things: we can modify items. That’s what’s great about having  Red Seal chefs in the program; they’re good. We have specific information readily available, so they know what they can modify.

 

RC: How have you successfully transitioned from Western to Eastern Canada?

JF: It was a lot of work at the ICSC [International Council of Shopping Centers] — wining and dining and begging and pleading just for our first location. It was really our relationship with Cadillac Fairview that let us get into Don Mills, [Ont.]. And, of course, we opened Don Mills a month after the world melted down. A lot of the retail had pulled out, GE had pulled out some financing, and it wasn’t a pleasant way to come into the market. But, we were lucky in that it was just an overlooked area that had great demand, great clientele.

 

RC:  You’re building units in Ottawa, Markham, Ont., and Sherway Gardens in Toronto. What do you see beyond that?

JF: It’s not about how many, it’s just about good locations and not getting too close. Our philosophy is to spend a bit more on the units [and] keep them in pristine condition. We want to keep them in distinct markets, so they’re not cannibalizing each other.

 

RC: You have three units in Seattle. Do you operate those restaurants differently than the Canadian ones?

JF: For sure, it’s made us stronger [from a] human resources point of view. It’s very litigious in the U.S. But, it’s really helped us, because it’s brought practices into our Canadian operations that we otherwise wouldn’t be as diligent on. We are seeing great sales numbers in the U.S., this year in particular. It was during the economic crash, literally when Wachovia went down, it was a 15-per-cent drop across the board. We slowly fought to bring that back. They are very brand- driven, as we are in Canada, but even more so in the U.S. There are little nuances we’re learning, but we’re starting to get momentum, and we have a letter of intent on a place in northern L.A., in Topanga Canyon (to open in 2015).

 

RC: Is the cost of food cheaper in the U.S.?

JF: It is. Alcohol is lower and the taxes are less, too. But, the portions tend to be a bit bigger. So, it’s a little different; the food cost is a little bit less, but labour is a little bit higher. That’s probably just Washington state, which has quite a high minimum wage — $10, I believe. There’s a magic number between cost of sales and labour, and we manage that well above and below the border.

 

RC: Do you and your brothers operate out of separate buildings and keep your different foodservice concepts separate?

JF: We’re completely autonomous. So, we run our own payroll. For me, if you’re going to hold people accountable, they have to be working within your four walls. It’s not just that we want the best GM running X store — we want the best payroll person, because they’re a service provider to our service operations…. It allows us to compete; it’s what keeps us on our toes. Within the family, there’s some fun dysfunction — and then you have my dad over all of it pushing buttons, poking and prodding and just loving it.

 

RC: How do you get inspired to innovate?

JF: With innovation, 90 per cent of it comes through travel for me. But there’s also another big piece: we run a league of extraordinary chefs that [our chef] Chris Mills presides over. [It’s] an opportunity for our chefs to create a dish, and they regionally go through a competition, and it gets narrowed down and then, at our annual awards event, the winner is rewarded. So, things like that are very inspirational. We’ve taken our chefs down to cook at the James Beard House twice…. Innovation is great, but it’s got to make sense. What’s been great for us is we use our test store as a test store. Now, with more and more units, it’s a lot of work to plug something in, and if you haven’t vetted it within reason, you hurt the confidence of your operators.

 

RC: What makes a good leader?

JF: I feel like I get great loyalty. I can be tough on people, but we also have a good time. We work hard and play hard. I give people a lot of leeway, mostly because I’m easily distracted, but, for me, leadership has always been about surrounding yourself with people that are better than you. Then if you can make them even better — that’s what it’s all about. That’s what I would say to any young managers or leaders within my organization or any other. If you hire and surround yourself with great people, life becomes a lot easier.

 

RC: How do you define great service?

JF: Great service is not technical. The technical piece you can train, and we have lots of great training. You can’t train the caring piece. So, if someone is genuinely interested in being of service, then the technical piece is very easy. For us, we want people to say they experienced something they didn’t even know they wanted. So, it’s giving them leeway, empowering them. I really like what Danny Meyer [CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group in New York] said in his book about a charitable assumption: if [employees] make a mistake, or if they start their shift a little bit late, you don’t start their shift off by giving them the evil look, because how are they going to be great if they’re under the gun from the get-go? Also, great service comes from the un-fun stuff, not the things we got into the business for but having enough people, having enough forks.

 

RC: Did you increase prices in the last few years?

JF: Absolutely. We follow the index; you have to. We stay away from discounting. When we had Joey Tomato’s we figured out then that the loyalty of that customer was to that discount and not to the brand. So, we focus on the value proposition.

 

RC: Where do you want to be five years from now?

JF: We have, from a succession plan, made some very great strategic moves, including promoting Tyson Rideout to VP, Eastern Market. So, we’ve done some things preparing for growth. We have certain numbers we project even though we don’t have the locations of how many units we want to build — whether we fulfill those or not, we’ll know in five years. But, probably two to three of each brand [Joey and Local Public Eatery] a year is where I’d like to be in five years. 

 

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