Wahoo's Founder on AI, Failure, and 38 Years of Grind | Coffeez Ep. 307

One, two, three. Hi, how are you? Very good. Good. I'm Meredith. Welcome to Coffees with Joe Chalabi. So you're getting my coffee. I'm your coffee girl. I love it. Yeah. Well, I like a little almond latte. Ice. Ice? Yes, perfect. Perfect. This is the best place. You get coffee. We also get chocolate. Oh my. And get some chocolate. Cheers. Cheers. Here, have a win. Yes. Thank you. So, Wing, I have a question. Yes. How many times have people asked you, why did you open a taco place instead of a wing place? You know, that's a great question. It's just that I like tacos way more than I like wings. I agree. Well, good to have you. Thank you. I'll show you to Joe. All right. My brother, what's up? Welcome back. I love it. I love it. I got my coffee right here. All right. All right. All right. Perfect. Boom. Cheers, my friend. It's been a couple of years since we've had you on the show. Has anything changed with your morning routines, as I asked you last? Surfing more, swimming more, because I'm getting ready for a big event this year. What are you swimming for? Well, I've got to get in shape. You're already in shape. I'm in pretty good shape, but you've got to be in swimming shape. It's different, right? Surfing, yes, but there is an annual event that happens every September. It's the Ben Carlson paddle from Catalina to Newport. It's a 30-mile. So just think of that. You're doing that on your surfboard? On a paddleboard. So my thing is I'll be the oldest guy to paddle the event this year. Wow. The paddle out? You're doing the paddle out? Yeah, so 30 miles. So it's about seven hours, give or take. So it's a marathon on the water. That's incredible. When is that? It'll be September 19th. That'd be a cool event to do. so if you're in shape come on in you can join me and we've got to practice still yeah how often do you practice i swim about four to five days a week right now and so i'm i'm there i'm in pretty good shape right now swim shape and paddleboard shape are different it's not as long as your shoulders are juiced up and ready and greased up you can do it yeah but yeah you got to get on your paddle but more important you got to keep those shoulders moving yeah exactly you know wing it's been such a pleasure last time we got to connect uh we've been obviously at some events together we got to do uh the california love drop which was a huge blessing i'd like to participate in of course in an event like that again california love drop is a yeah and and something i really admire about you is your heart is just a heart of gold your heart is always in the right place you always want to serve you always want to do god's work and just be a light to people and you have been a light and it shows and what you've done and what you've built and uh the wahoo's organization yeah no it's been great like i said you know i'm fortunate enough to have done well and my job is to go out and spread the love and share with the guys that don't have quite as good as we do that's right yeah now uh what's new with uh with wahoos have you expanded more stores i'm seeing more in like uh airports yeah so actually the airport's been a little delayed was supposed to been open by may of this year so we're about four months behind so it's now a little construction delay will be ready to open in October. So we're super excited to be at the Orange County Airport. Nice. Been seeing that sign for a while. And in the meantime, Austin, Texas has done really well. We came back about a year and a half ago in Lakeway, which is what we call it, the Newport Beach of Austin, Texas. And now we're going ready to go into downtown. So it should be just as we speak, it should be getting ready to open right now. You know, Wayne, at your age, you're still just in ultra grind mode. You're, you know, something young, 50 something young. Yes. And you just have this perpetual drive to always just get better and continue to dominate in your field in an ultra competitive business. What is it that really drives that motivation for you? You know, it's when people come to you, even when I'm in a competitor's restaurant, somebody will come up and say, my God, I love Waffles. And I'm like, we're at a pizza place. So let's maybe enjoy the pizza while we're here. But I mean, it's nice, right? So the people that, you know, basically can tell me stories about them eating, their kids, their grandparents. So both generations. So it's a multi-generation thing for me. So the fact that I've been at it for 38 years and people still, relatively speaking, never come up to me and says, man, you suck. You know, that day I'm hoping never happens. Right. So that's what keeps me motivated because I want to make sure I'm on top of everything. Everybody's following the recipes and putting out the best product we can. Now, I brought you here because there's something that's really nostalgic to me. I'm going to tell you the story. When I was 14 years old, my first job ever was selling ice cream at Thrifty's. And at 14 – no, you were allowed to work actually at 14 years old. Yeah, at 14 you can't. Back in my day, you can't do that anymore. It's a bunch of laws. 16 now. But whatever. But one of the things I like to do a lot when I was giving out – when I was scooping ice cream, I would hook up everybody. Everybody would get an extra free scoop. Yeah. So that ended up getting me fired. But it was a cool learning lesson. It was a cool learning lesson and that nostalgia of Thrifty's ice cream and the joy that it brought to me and always getting free ice cream and giving people free ice cream and the joy I brought to people. But now Thrifty's, as you know, it's gone. And I heard through the grapevine that my boy might be buying it. Well, so here's what happened. So I got a call. I mean, first I saw that somebody bought it, right? And I heard rumors that Monster Energy Drink bought it, right? So I'm friends with Hilton and Rodney, they're basically the majority owners of the company. And we've been friends for a long time. So we were chit-chatting and they're kind of going, yeah, but we're not going to talk about it anymore. I'm like, okay, whatever, right? So I kept asking the guys at Monster, when are we going to get ice cream? Because I saw a freezer in their warehouse, Thrifty's ice cream freezer, but there was nothing in it. So a month or two go by. And so after about three or four months, I'm like, I forgot about it. Then I get a phone call from Hilton. It goes, hey, my son-in-law, Donnie, is running the company. I'm like, okay, so the rumor is true. You guys bought it out of bankruptcy, blah, blah, blah. But the stores, the actually pharmacies basically are still shut down. But the ice cream factory never stopped making ice cream. So it's the same place since the 70s in El Monte. And he goes, wait, we need to basically do what we used to do together with Monster. because I am the original retailer for Monster in the World. We did all the events with them, and we still do quite a bit. They said, can we do that with ice cream? I'm like, oh, my God, it'd be totally fun. So we did an event with Vans, a video premiere for Steve Cagliaro last fall, and people were coming in to get their burritos and tacos, and at the end of the line, there's Drifties ice cream. And people are like, oh, my God, and everybody has a story, not quite as good as yours giving away, but everything starts with it. I remember buying it for a nickel, a scoop, or 10 cents, or 25 cents, whatever the price was. But everybody has that nostalgic memory of it. It was always an affordable treat. It's an affordable treat. That's the key. And you kept it affordable. Yes. So for me, it's like, well, can we start doing events? So we started taking it to our events. And because after you eat something spicy, there's nothing like eating something icy, sweet, and whatever I say. And it was amazing. so we've done multiple events as we're speaking right now we're getting ready to bring them to the summer x games you know again in sacramento next week where people are going to be you know again eating our tacos and then maybe have some ice cream afterwards and again it's just one of those combinations right that you need something sweet after you eat something spicy right and it is amazing and here's the things that i learned because i always thought and i don't know when you were working there's probably about maybe a dozen flavors yeah how many flavors do you think there are i don't know now with baskin robbins you know 31 flavors i'm sure there's 100 of flavors there's 90 flavors which i've never seen any of them until we did an event the strawberry festival a couple weeks ago and i thought okay there's gonna bring i said just bring strawberry ice cream because it's the strawberry festival garden grow and there's five flavors i'm like what are talking about well there's strawberry cheesecake there's strawberry banana i and i'm like there's strawberry chocolate chip i'm like what is all this it was well because we have a lot more that you don't know because it's sold to restaurants so you never see it unless you see the you know the mint chocolate chip the chocolate whatever there's basically the core like dozen flavors and then there's all these other ones that you never see and here i am oh my god so now getting the opportunity to go and tour the plant, which we got to go sometime. Because if you work there, I'm telling you. The nostalgia associated with Thriftees, I mean, I'm all in. I'm actually wondering if they're taking extra investors. What's the story with Thriftees? I'd be a big advocate and a big partner. Well, let me ask those guys. Because as far as I know, they bought it straight up. There's no financing involved. They bought it for cash. But the coolest thing is when you're eating ice cream straight out of the assembly line, it's more like custard and ice cream because it hasn't frozen yet and it's like somewhere between custard and soft serve and it is delicious you know now everything's like gelato and it's like nine bucks a little tiny scoop and i'm like gosh you know as thrifties were pennies you know and they were they brought the same joy yes you know and actually it was more joy because i would have to walk up a hill and down a hill to get to the thrifties you know and it was like laborious to get that ice cream you know now they're getting driven to get their gelato like come on no struggle and like you said a family of four you know relatively speaking it's almost the same price as one person at a gelato place four people can have ice cream at thrifties a family of four back in my day would be two bucks exactly one little tiny scoop of gelato seven so actually it's a family of 16 that can have and it's really good ice cream it's great ice cream yeah but the one that got me off because we were talking about your favorite flavors right and we'll get to your favorite but i didn't realize that when you go to an asian restaurant in california and you get a scoop of green tea ice cream at the end it's thrifties i had no idea they made that they're like the niagara waters ice cream pretty much they make all the stuff and nobody knows so when you're getting a pie a la mode 90 of the time that vanilla will be from them yeah well that's good to know and now we know everything's thrifty's ice cream yeah so what is happening with thrifty's what is your involvement we're going to try to help them expand into the stadiums and to the events and more important bring them into our store so right now we're in the middle of you know finding space it looks like two of our locations we're going to test it out because we're going to see because labor is a big issue for everybody in the restaurant industry so if we can have that little ding by the ice cream counter so nobody has to be there full time but as soon to hear that ding, that means somebody wants a scoop, just like a thrifties. So if we're going to use that model, I think it'll work. Now, last time we spoke, we mentioned labor on our podcast and how expensive labor has gotten for you, especially post-COVID. Now, with obviously AI emerging, have you implemented AI strategies to really bring down your labor costs? We haven't yet. We've been talking about it to where we would humanize the experience by using like a tablet or a kiosk or something like that. You still haven't implemented those? We haven't because we haven't found the right software to use it. We know it exists. But again, it's not exactly inexpensive to do this. Yeah. But the idea that, you know, quote unquote, like if somebody came to your business and instead of talking to a machine, you would pop up in an AI slash, you know, augmented reality format and you would welcome, hey, good to see you again. Can I help you with whatever? Right. So that's the idea. So we know that technology exists. Oh, that's out right now? I haven't seen that. I just see kiosks and you can just like – It exists. But again, it's the expense. So if somebody would spend a little bit more, imagine you swiping your credit card down and my 3D image augmented reality pops out of the screen. That's going to be pretty cool. Joe, great to see you again. But it's the old adage, which is not that old, but you can call it an old adage because it will be new now. uh it's new now but it'll be old shortly it's ai is costing more than human labor human labor right now yes i mean that that's a reality it's crazy how we explain and people don't know and all these guys at the end of the month when they get their bills they're like oh my god yeah i could have hired 20 people for this exactly and i i spent 80 grand to replace one person because they don't realize that every time you ask a question the clock's ticking yeah and the thing is you're you're making an investment into ai how much of a strategic investment is wahoo is putting into ai right now in their current ecosystem in the current ecosystem we're using it more for uh pr because we can create videos which we already did and again testing it out through my friend josh we were able to use two versions of it one you know me and you in real person and then one creating through AI. And it turns out that the AI version, people think it's funnier. It's cute because people love cartoons, right? So when you have something that's more user-friendly, people like to share because they think it's cute. Well, there's an AI version of Wing, a cartoon, right? People love it. So we tested it out with a couple of events recently, and the traffic that we generated through the promotion was way more than we anticipated. So in a typical, I call it direct mail piece at 1% or 2%, we ended up getting close to 10%, which is, again, relatively speaking. So that's the only aspect you're using it right now. Right now because it's, again, relatively inexpensive to do it, right? Because it's the same to create a video than it is to create an iVideo. So, again, not a lot of money yet, but the results seem to be better. Now, do you think it'll drive down the cost of like food or labor or the real hard expenses, rents? I mean, anything where it'll really help where the significant bottom line numbers or is this helping with marketing? I think right now marketing is the first thing that we're testing. The next thing would be like in-store instead of having, let's say, three or four cashiers, if you can get one of them down. And as long as the AI proposition replacing that one person is cost effective. Right. So that's where we're at in that moment right now is deciding where is that, you know, break even. Right. And everybody's trying it. And when you hear my friends that have other operations, other fast food concepts, saying that whenever they get somebody that's over 60, you know, in their store and they look like a deer in a headlight going, because they don't know how to order and there's nobody human to help them. So unless a young person behind them will say, excuse me, let me show you how to run through the menu. So sometimes the technology is ahead of the population, right? Yeah. So we just got, again, find that sweet spot where everything meets. Well, I think where the solution is having that augmented AI human to really help them walk through or just take their order. Yeah, just take their order for now. But again, so the idea that you can have 100% one or the other doesn't work. A combination is where we're going to end up at. But finding the sweet spot of the number of employees to the number of kiosks is where – because remember, those kiosks aren't cheap and they have a tendency to go down. And they have a tendency to break down. So who's your tech guy on staff to fix that? Yeah, so that's a hint. Who's going to be a six-figure earner? There you go, yeah. So there's always that. A quarter million dollars for your tech guy to fix the kiosk that breaks. Exactly. So there you go. who told me this was a good idea joe you said ai was going to mitigate my costs exactly but even in your industry right at the end of the day we're we're actually using it for for for marketing primarily yeah it would be the the biggest variable yeah uh and then um our investors are using it for like underwriting um we're using it for some of our systems yeah you know we're having various chat bots for customer service yep it's the customer service element but you don't need a hotline for wahoo no no no not yet yeah because the answers you know questions are relatively hey i got my chicken instead of beef whatever yeah unless yeah yeah actually you do need that for taking phone orders yeah we do and again that's one of the the things that people still like to either order online which they don't need to talk to anybody but they kind of like getting to know the person at the store the managers and the cashiers because it's Believe it or not, a lot of our regulars feel more comfortable knowing that the person at the other end knows exactly the way they like their food to be done. So AI can't really do that yet. Yeah. But once you're kind of in the system, it'll remember. So that's a good part about AI. And there's empathetic AI where they will be able to develop like a emotional relevance and understanding of that one person. and then they'll be able to be like hey john how are your kids i heard they had a baseball game the other day yeah you know but again it's it's all coming right and it's a matter of fact again but you you want it to be more personal yeah than just a robot you also have humanoid robots kind of coming into market and any any it's getting better yeah those guys are those guys could be a good resource yeah so again cost at the end of the day like oh my god how much money to program that thing. That's right. That's right. Now, what do you really find the most joy in right now? Is it building a Wahoos? Is it coming up with a new concept, a new business? Is it California Love Drop, your philanthropy projects? What is the most joy for you out of all those things? It's a combination. It's always fun right now, like doing wedding rehearsals. How exciting is it for me to be in that league where you know in the old days it would be at a hotel it be a full you know five star catering company And somebody that grew up eating our food goes, hey, I would love it if you guys did that for me. And I'm like, OK, you want tacos for your rehearsal or this. So like, again, because it is a monumental, like a date, you know, like significant, you know, happening in your life. This is not just a graduation party. It's a major milestone. So for us to be a part of that experience, that excites me. I mean, the other day we did a baby shower, right? And again, we're welcoming somebody to our world. And for us to be a part of that is like, you know, and again. Such a blessing. These are those moments where I'm like, we're doing baby showers. We're doing weddings. So these things excite me from the food perspective, right? And the fact that next week we get to go to the Summer X Games and we'll be doing food for all the athletes. so again they could have anything they want at that level and i happen to be the number one choice to be the food for the athletes so that excites you've always been the number one choice for the x games so yeah i mean it's always been fun yeah you've always been that would be cool if you were the number one choice for fifa hey but right now i'm literally negotiating about possibly doing something at the u.s open of tennis that'd be cool you know i mean so these excite me and because again the brands are like why not bring something from california all over to new york you know nothing is cooler than you know surf culture yeah right surf beach culture in new southern california and you have really embodied that surf beach vibe yep and even down to what you're wearing right now i mean like literally you're just as california like you rock that style and you know when you think surf beach culture you think wahoos you think wing yes you know you got stickers made of your imagery you know it's pretty crazy no it is really fun and to branch out to like we're doing a pickleball tournament this weekend so new sports huge yeah so all not very dangerous exactly and again but it's the whole active lifestyle and people are you know fashionable and everything and partnering up with old and new brands like k-swiss build clothing all these new brands and old brands are like, hey, why not be a part of the whole experience? So again, you keep hearing experiential marketing and all that. That's what people want. Well, I just want to be a part of that vibe and what's happening. And the same thing, Warped Tours came back last year. And so in July, we had the Warped Tour in Long Beach to be doing those events again that we used to do 30 years ago. I mean, how fun is that? And again, I don't know half of the punk bands that are playing there, but the fact that they want us to be there is exciting but they all know you they know us yes they all know you so like right now it's you know if you were to go back if you were 25 years old it's 2026 now knowing what you know about the restaurant business what business would you start right now you know what i do do now is things with your hands okay right i.e if you're in newport beach and you can work on a Mercedes, a Porsche, that's pre-computer chip, you name your price. Because guess what? You can't just plug in that computer into your car and it goes, what is that noise? You either know what that noise is or you don't. Well, a 3D printer could kind of do it. No, yeah. So if you have an old car that doesn't have a computer chip in it, you have to know what that noise is. And only the guys that work on those cars. So to me, that guy is priceless because most people in Newport have an old Porsche or Mercedes, a Bugatti, anything that's old that doesn't have a chip. A computer can't tell you what's wrong with it. You got to know it. And once you have one of those guys, that is kind of like your surgeon. You don't want to lose them. You don't want to let anybody else work on your car because that's the only guy you can trust to fix your car because they know. And the reason I know that is if you have a Harley, you better have your Harley mechanic on speed dial if you have an old bike. Because I used to have one of those. And I had my guy on speed dial. Because anytime something went wrong, my guy could come over and two seconds later he knew exactly what was wrong with it. Because you have to look at it. You can't just, you hear it and you know what's wrong. But you can't just attach it to something that goes, oh yeah, this cylinder or this. You have to know it. so mechanics are priceless right now because you know that means their prices are going up oh they're going through the sky they said i some of the some of the guys i've read interviews and i've seen interviews where they're like yeah plumbers are going to cost more oh my god yeah they're going to cost a fortune soon plumbers electrician yeah the trade that we used to make fun of the blue collars right well guess what if you want your tree cut down you just can't call the internet I go, hey, somebody physically has to come and cut it down. Somebody has to lay the cement. Somebody's got to put your pool in, your tennis court. So my buddy of mine that builds all the tennis courts, he makes a fortune. Because people go, I'm the best guy. And if you want a basketball, a pickleball, a tennis court in your backyard, you're going to have to call me. And you're going to have to pay whatever I charge you. Pretty much. So I would say the trade, you can't order on the internet. AI is not going to build it for you. you need a physical person there what happens when the humanoid robots take that job i'll be interesting to see if again they can anticipate because there are certain things that they can't they're going to learn but at a certain point again they could be like we we see the threat of that happening like plumbers electricians ac guys all those guys but you know i know that the humanoids are trying to figure that out too everybody is but at the end of the day if you can teach the robot to do it you're still going to have a job yeah because the robot can only learn from somebody that's already done it okay right they they don't know what they don't know until you teach it right so it's great the trades are right now going to be a hot commodity until humanoids take that over yeah but again which is coming after ai yes uh and then what else Oh, the car thing too. That's true. Cars. So anything that we can build. Food is not that far behind, right? Because you can teach a robot how to cook. But at the end of the day, who comes up with the recipe and the whole thing? Humans still have to anticipate, right? But again, if you can tell a robot what to do, it can do it. But it takes commands. It doesn't have creativity. And this is where we still have an advantage, the creative part. Yeah, it's crazy because you started in this industry way before AI or robots. You were like before the Jetsons were even talking about it. But I've seen it. I mean I went to an event where they had like a wok and it looked like a cement mixer but like smaller, right? But just think of a thing that's a swirl of food. So you threw the ingredients in and you threw the sauces in and literally tossed the food around. the problem with that is if you don't throw the ingredients in the right order right so it does take a human to understand and this is the recipe right because you got to throw the protein before the vegetables so there is a sequence into how the items get in and how the sauces get in so one little screw up and the food doesn't taste that good right now let me ask you um what is like one opportunity that everyone should be in right now? I think right now it's so much easier to launch a product on social media, right? You got an idea. It doesn't take a lot of money to test out your idea, right? So whatever that may be, whether it's a physical item, a service, whatever it is, throw it out on the internet. But I'm watching shows with little kids doing all kinds of amazing things, whether it's in a farm scenario, whether they're cooking something or they're showing how to build a toy. Remember all these things. So kids are able to make a lot of money at a relatively young age by just being able to share their ideas. Right. So I think the Internet opens a lot of doors for a lot of different people. So you don't have to have a college degree. You don't have to have a storefront. So a lot of less overhead to launch a new business. and if it gets some traction, then you could choose to go to a brick and mortar or you can just use to expand our online presence. So I see a lot of people doing things online that I don't think would ever work in the old brick and mortar world, right? So whatever that may be. So I see a lot of new companies and how fast they're taking off because you don't have to go across the country and across the world to look for retailers to sell your idea. You can just do it yourself, right? So whether it's a service or a product, doing it online is way, way faster and a lot less risky and expensive. I mean the amount you can scale from the comfort of your own home with no inventory now, it would like drop shipping. You don't even have to buy anything. You're just like, I'll just use this guy. I'll drop ship and just use my address and creatively market. It's crazy the world of industries and the amount of money that's being generated as a result now. That's what's causing, I think, a big uproot in inflation. just because money is so easy to make now. Oh, it is. Yeah. So there's a lot of great ideas out there. So you can spend a couple of days instead of two to three years to find out it didn't work. Right. So it's much faster to success, much quicker to failure as well. Now, we've seen like costs really kind of go up as a result. We've seen inflation. Last time you and I talked, we were in a different economic environment. Way different. Yeah. So how much has inflation hit your menu? It is because the issue for us is people that are on a fixed income, right? I'm pretty sure that from two years ago to today, if you just did your normal cost of living, right? Let's just use a good number, 10%, right? Which is probably way higher than most, right? So if you were making $30,000, whatever, you could assume you're making, what, $36,000 today, okay? But the problem with that is gas prices recently went up 50%. So all of a sudden, you still have to get to work. So where do I cut? So the obvious is things that I don't really need. Like I'll just starve myself. I don't need Wahoos. Or I can brown bag it, right? So these are the things. So everybody in my category saw a little 10% to 20% decrease in traffic because the fact that people still need to get to work. but you're going to opt out to brown bag it instead of going out to eat for lunch. Or you might wait an extra two to four weeks to get your hair cut. You might wait two to three more weeks to get your nails done. So everything that you would count on a monthly or six weeks, whatever, everything got pushed out. Well, Supercuts rolled out a monthly membership. I mean I'm on a monthly membership for my car wash. I'm on a monthly membership for Supercuts. Exactly. So the people that figured out the subscription models, right, Where they can still make money, they can count on that. Because you don't feel guilty because you already paid for it. Yeah, exactly. It's already fixed into my budget. Yeah, it's already in. I'm not like I need a budget, but I still live like I'm on a budget. But the idea is that people that say, well, this is not in my budget anymore. So what is that? Is it a haircut? Think of all the things. Because I can tell you, the women, on the clock, they're still going to get their Botox. They're still going to get the things that they want and they feel they need. Right. But so there's the need and the want. So do I need it or do I want it? Right. So that's where the people on fixed income. Meredith, I would like to say I went to trade school for cosmetology. And one thing we learned is women will always pay for their beauty. Like he said, like they always get their hair done. They always get their nails done. Like A.I. is never taking that job. Very good. And then did inflation hit your your lifestyle at all? I get tipped more because my checks are higher. That's good. It works for me, but I also don't eat at the restaurants I work at. Yeah, and they probably give you free food, but you're like, I ain't eating this stuff. No, I always take the free food. It's like I don't have to go grocery shopping because I work in restaurants. Yeah. You know? Good move. Good move. Yeah. So there are certain things. Like I said, certain trades got affected. Some didn't, right? So it all depends on where you are in the spectrum of service. Now, do you think that AI is going to be used as a tool as a restaurateur? Or do you think it's going to be an opportunity in the business? Or do you think it's going to be more of a threat to the business? It depends on how you see it, right? Because everything that changes is always like a threat. Because am I going to lose my job? Is it going to replace somebody, right? But you've got to welcome changes. And how do you embrace it? By seeing how it can help your business. So at the end of the day, I don't have the exact answer. because a lot of people are threatened, especially the hourly employees, right? But they got to remember that there is still the need for the human interaction. That's what is called hospitality. AI can't do that for you. It can, you can teach it to say hello to your customers, but there's a difference between saying hello and that smile on a really, you know, like welcoming somebody back. So I'm pretty sure none of us humans are going to become friends with an AI person, but we're always going to be friends with our favorite hair salon, our favorite bartender, our favorite waiter, our favorite host, because that smiley, that face, that interaction, the human connection is what we want when we go out. So we go out to places, jokingly, where everybody knows our name, right? It's true. We want to feel welcome. We want to basically go to a friend's house. So you end up frequenting restaurants, businesses that people know you, and they know what you like they know what you don't like but more important they treat you like a friend i have two things to mention on that like gen z or gen alpha or these new generations who are not so assimilated to that vibe right like we me and you want to go to our friends yes yes me and you want to go feel like we're welcome at home but gen alpha just wants to go to a place and play video games with their friends on roblox virtually yes so they have a virtual or a parasocial yeah relationship with mr beast they don't know mr beast but they're like they know him through content right so like the parasocial element and the virtual uh realities that these kids live in you say that and it's true but is it true for the next generation and how are you like how do we combat that in the restaurant world it's like they just they're gonna order while is through uber eats there's no parasocial relation there's no relationship there they don't know you they don't need a smile from you they just carry on i agree with you they're so they they hate talking to people yeah they hate interacting with humans they're much more comfortable yelling and friendly whatever interacting with uh their phone or a computer whatever that may be right kiosk and you're 100 right but at the end of the day right they're gonna to end up having to go to work in a real scenario so once they kind of get out of their ears of just you know hiding behind the curtain right they're going to realize that they're going to work for humans as far as i know your boss is still going to be a human being unless they get a job in like a virtual metaverse yeah but yeah so in that case right they're going to go why we need you right because we're in the metaverse it's everything's gonna be machines so at a certain point, you're going to have to learn those soft skill sets. And that's the one thing this generation doesn't have. They don't know how to deal with conflict. Because as soon as somebody yells at them, they're like, oh my God, I got to get out of here. Because they don't know what to do. Because computers, phones, they don't talk back to you. They don't yell at you. Humans do. So as soon as they figured out that the majority of people that control this world still is older than them, they better learn those soft skills, the interaction with humans. And that's when they're going to realize, oh my God, I should have been doing that a long time ago instead of hiding behind my phone. So I have a question. As a father, we got a kid the same age, older kids, and you still have young ones like me. How are you teaching those soft skills to your kids who are actively on roadblocks, talking to their friends, yelling to someone who's never going to yell back? it's like i said it's very hard because they don't understand you know because they're like why do i why do i have to listen to this person why do i because in our days it was expected that your coach would literally undress you chew you up and down yeah you do that today to a 10 year old oh my god that coach is never gonna he'll be in prison exactly you can't you know whatever you're you know whatever doing to your our kid but my generation goes that's how we talk to the kids yeah you gotta toughen them up i got a football coach for my six-year-old i found him by the grace of god like and he just yeah he treats it's like old school football coach like makes them run lines he calls them they run ladders they you know he yells at them i'm like think where's this he's like a saint exactly this is what the kids need first coach i ever had and And when I found him, like, you know, literally it was politics to keep my kid on the team. Like, oh, you know, he has a division of my company. Like, he's not going to cut my kid. Exactly. Like, I got to keep my kid under that rule. Yes. Right? Because even the coaches are soft now. Yeah. They're super soft because, again, there's always one parent there that maybe didn't play sports and didn't realize that that's what happens in the practice field. Yeah. It's toughen them up. And literally across the board. you even touch a kid and oh my god that's grounds to get fired i'm like you gotta be kidding me yeah you know we used to get you know literally picked up by your neck and go you you understand what we're trying to win here right yeah and we're like okay coach we got it now it's a pansy generation yes yes yes so they need a little toughen up you know a little reality right because we're nobody's there trying to hurt you they're just trying to make sure you understand that we're here to win a game not just have fun I do suffer with this a lot I even have this conversation with my kids even today i was like you know how many push does your coach make you do in in muay thai yesterday and this is my six and four year old which i'm you know that's why i have i have muay thai today after the basketball camp like you're gonna go there and they don't play around like you're gonna mess around they're gonna make you do push-ups you know you keep doing push-ups and kick you out of the class like that sort of uh strict culture in sports is non-existent so When I find something that exists like that, which I'm going to recommend to you. It's right by our house, both of our houses. Giga Kick, Muay Thai for the 10-year-old. They're serious. They're like, you mess around, you're going to kick it. You mess around, you're going to do push-ups. That's right. We don't care. No, no, no. I'll kick you in the stomach. They'll do it. Thank God. Do it. Beat them up. Beat them up. It's okay to get hit. But again, it's like the coaching, the softness. And again, the whole giving everybody a ribbon for just showing up, I'm like, you're not teaching them reality. Yeah. Participation trophies are the biggest joke ever. Absolutely. We're still the only country that I think that does it. And I'm like, come on. And I think the old, like if you play soccer in other countries, not in America, most of it is done in the streets, right? In the dirt, whatever, because it's just a ball and a net. there's really and marking like here's the out of bounds whatever there's not like beautiful grass fields like we have here you know in most countries there is no such a thing because nobody can afford it you know so you basically learn and it's survival the playground rules it's the survival gets to stay on right so we need a little bit more of that instead of like hey everybody can play maybe you should be doing something else if you can't play right so i'm all for yes we want participation but at a certain level you can't have participation in winning they don't exactly live next with each other right yeah winning is winning and the best players have to play right but at a certain time goes maybe this isn't the sport for you right but you got to figure that out i mean i can't get out there so i you know i don't want to yell at the coaches i don't want to yell at the kids you know but at the same time i'm like god i mean something's got to give something's definitely got to give yeah and i think you know we are slowly learning and being able to implement these like me as a father like trying to bring old school back to new school yeah um now let me ask you this is you know if if wahoo's were to launch today oh my god okay and you had zero locations yeah do you think social media alone could build your brand i believe depending on who I'm targeting, right? But social media is the most cost-effective word of mouth out there because it doesn't cost you much, right? So if you can get the right people on social media to talk about you, and it doesn't cost money, right? So it amplifies. So instead of having one person tell three people to tell three people, whatever, one person could tell a thousand. So it's a much faster way to amplify, but it's also much faster to die. Destroy, yeah. Yeah. We have that donut shop on the beach in Newport that went viral, the one right on the boardwalk. And it's got a line. Every day. Every day wrapped around the building. And it's literally just general donuts. But it doesn't matter. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It went viral on TikTok. Yeah. It went viral. And everybody from every college student from everywhere drives like 50 miles to get this ham and cheese donut that's thrown in the microwave. Yeah. It's not even like toasted. It's like totally gross. Yeah. But people love it. They saw it and they're like, okay, they're going to try it. We got to get Wahoos to go viral like that. So it's like virality makes businesses pop. Yeah. And we are basically in the middle of all that right now. We got some great guys. You know, my buddy Josh right now. Yeah, influencers that we're going to team up with and create some great content because the magazine days are basically done. TV and radio is mostly for the old generation as well. Traditional, we call it. So social is the only way to capture the younger generation. And I feel like if you were to bring back the old guerrilla marketing that you did, that put Wahoos on the map, the stickers and all that, there's still a place for that. Outside of getting fined by the city. Yeah, absolutely. There's still – that branding was legit and it worked. and most recently uh last summer a buddy of mine was going on the good morning america show in new york city and he basically said you got to give me a sticker and i'm like why i was so i got him a sticker and the next thing i know he sends me the video he was the dj for sublime and there he is on good morning national tv and there's the wahoo sticker on the board and i'm like holy moly that's what he wanted the sticker for so now it resides on his dj board and it's seen all over the world He always sends me pictures. He just played Petco Park in front of 50,000 people. And there's a little sticker right there on the board. Yeah. I mean, that's an iconic sticker. So everything helps. Again, no right or wrong. And as long as people see the image and they basically say, I like Sublime, therefore, maybe I'll like Wahoos, right? So it's always the affiliation. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, for me and the way I track our marketing is I don't look at like conversions like everybody else. I just look at eyeballs. How many eyeballs am I generating a day? Yeah. I like to average about one to one and a half million views a day. Exactly. Like how many of them bought loans? I don't know. I mean, how many of them got loans? I don't know. How many of them joined the company? I don't know. But I know that I'm generating and I'm hitting my barometer. Yes. And we know that there's a certain conversion rate off of that, right? Yeah. So as long as you're getting that 1.2 every day, you're going to get X on the backside. It is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not like chasing the conversions because that number, I don't even know how to gauge it. But you know as long as – I'm hitting those numbers. I'm going to convert every single month. Now, you've made a lot of mistakes. I think we kind of covered one of your biggest mistakes. I don't know if you've had a bigger mistake. What's the biggest mistake you've had since you've launched? you know i would say you know there's a couple of things that kind of like the ones that kind of upset you a little bit is you know being trustworthy you know of the people that say who they are you know in providing the service they're going to do for you right so you take it a face out so what you learn from that is referrals so any more these days and i tell everybody out there if you're talking to mechanic the plumber electrician whatever it is that they're going to do for you an ad agency talk to the people they're doing business with find out how they're like what kind of results you're get really going to get because everybody's going to go of course i get x r you know r y on every transaction and they're going to go wow that seems to be awfully high for that kind of service right so then they don't get their references and talk to them behind the scenes goes hey what is this guy like is this a guy that lives by his word basically say hey i'm going to do it for 10 000 i'm going to do it for two dollars what is the metric here and does he deliver does he under does he over and i like to work with guys that over deliver right because then at the end of the day they always want to make sure you're happy and a guy wants to make sure you're happy you're only going to be happy to over deliver so if you're constantly over delivering because on my side i always want to over deliver as well because i want to get that referral for the next gig so you those are the guys that i look for but yeah you you learn the hard way there are some guys that will tell you that they're the best of the best and you find out they're the worst of the worst right so it's a hard lesson to learn but through the referrals you're going to find out who they really are you do over deliver one thing i noticed about you like you get in the trenches you do the work like you will be the head chef yes like you don't care like you there there is no job at wahoos that you're not you're too good for yep you get in the weeds i get in the weeds every good The CEO gets right in the weeds and does the janitor's job, does the cook's job. And actually, you actually still do the cook's job. That still brings you joy. Well, when we came to your event, I'm out there cooking because I want to make sure everything is perfect. And I'm like, dude, wing of Wahoos is making the tuna. Like, we got to go get the tuna. That was your signature tuna from Hawaii. That was pretty good. You're like, yeah, this is straight up from Hawaii. That's it. I'm like, this is the best tuna I've ever had. Yeah, we're going to have some poke. We're going to make some poke. Yeah. And we got to do that again. Yeah, we're bringing it back. We've got to do another event. And you're always such a good spirit. It's not just the food. It's the vibe with the food. I think a lot of the success of Wahoos is because of you and the vibe that you brought with the food because food is a shared experience. Yeah, and you want to be around happy people. You don't want to be there with a grumpy guy that goes, oh my God, it's Friday night. I'm stuck here behind the grill. It's Friday night. I'm happy to be behind the grill. See, that's the difference. Yeah. What is it that makes you just such a joyful guy? What do you think it is that like inspires you to be so happy and want to be behind the, you know, the grill cooking for people? And, you know, where's that joy coming from? Well, just again, the satisfaction of delivering a great experience. And the fact is, you never know who they're related to. Right. And recently, you know, there was a young kid that approached me and wanted to say, I think my dad knows you, that or that, whatever it was. And I'm like, hey, let's go grab lunch and talk. And in the conversation, we find out that he's connected to a bunch of celebrities that I thought, wow, this would be a great again. together we can do some really fun stuff and again without dropping any major names but we're talking major celebrity guys and in my head i'm like have i never taken the chance to go spend time with this kid i would have never known who else he works with and that's where a lot of people don't understand like the idea that you're ever going to go to a bar because you're going to meet somebody the odds of you meeting that person is about zero and none but the fact that you're going to go there to have a good time and make sure your friends are having a good time when you're in that energy that energy attracts people to you and then all of a sudden guys girls will be looking at goes wow that guy's really cool he's having a great time i need to know who that guy is and all of a sudden you meet people because you just put out a good vibe and it naturally comes back to you but when you're putting that negative vibe out there nobody was oh that guy's like i'm not gonna go near that guy nobody wants to be around negative nancy no no not at all and so the people that you end up meeting and attracting everybody rises together so the possibility of doing more fun stuff just keeps happening because you are a fun person now um do you have a mistake that you could recall that just cost you a fortune? There's been a few, but I would say, you know, if I had to put on one thing, right? Promoters in general, because they actually don't have anything tangible. They're just a promoter, right? So you tend to learn early on that if you were promised whatever product, whatever service you were promised on a promoter and try to get it on the front end of the transaction because once the event is over the ability to collect on any of those services are about zero and none because all the leverage is gone because you already delivered your part of it yeah and it's too late for them to do anything about theirs and they don't they don't hold their word on and they're like i'm sorry uh things happen uh we didn't make enough money whatever happened you're screwed and you're screwed and you're like oh my god and you promise your family your friends to be able to do something and now you're stuck right so things like that so you again learn early on and there's been a few instances with promoter when we did college trips and it goes okay you know we're going to get 10 tickets everybody's going to go to you know on this trip and when the time came to the event i'm sorry we only have two tickets and you're like where's the rest of the eight people going to go well i'm sorry that's all they have to say And I'm like, well, sorry, this is not going to get these eight people to wherever they're going to go. Right. And it's too late because it's happening. So my job is I should have gotten those 10 tickets the day we signed the contract to make sure my whole team is going to go. Right. So you learn that and go, OK, you learn these lessons. Right. You get what you want on the front end. And I would say that's maybe 10 percent of the people. Right. but it just hopefully never happens to you in a way where it's meaningful that you promise your wife your neighbor your employee that they're going to get to do something if they did their part and now they're sitting there going what happened right and they're like i'm sorry that's all they have to say and i'm like what is that going to do for us right now right nothing so you learn and then you go make a mental note right next time i talk to you meredith you're in the restaurant business, any time anything sketched like that happen to you? Yes. You know, in the restaurant business. Anybody ever left you hanging to dry, I call it, right? They said, oh yeah, yeah, come over and get this, right? And you come over and go, oh yeah, by the way, that would be $100. And I'm like, I would have never came over here if you were going to charge me $100. If you would have told me, right, to come by and get a new suntan or, oh, we're going to do the tattoo for you because we're going to do a matching one on the other side and then you get on the table because well that's going to be five thousand dollars you're like uh uh uh right yeah um one time not in a restaurant or anything but one time a guy was like oh let me come over and cook you dinner and then after he texted me he's like so that steak was 37 just so you know i thought you're making this for me exactly yeah yeah uh where'd you meet that guy don't go on that don't go back there because there's a big difference between come over and get something and come over and buy something yeah they're too big right so in my world i know the difference right and you know who the guys are that literally come over here you need a pair of sunglasses come over here and come and the next thing you know go well that'll be 300 bucks i'm like i i didn't need the sunglasses for 300 right yeah you're like i thought this was free but okay yeah because oh we're going to trade services i was going to make you cocktails and you're going to make me dinner right so there's that quid for crow, right? It's okay. But you know what you're going to give, you know what you're going to get. The communication sometimes comes across as like, oh yeah, you're such a great girl and I'm going to do this for you. And by the way, here's the bill for it, right? Well, this time he was parking in my apartment building's parking lot for like a couple of days. He just needed his car there to go to San Diego. He's like, I'll make you dinner. So I was like, sure, exchange for it, exchange, and then try to get me to pay. I didn't pay though. He's like, you just kept your car here. I know. Exactly, yeah. That's those pansy guys we keep talking about, you know, that raising a generation where it's just like nobody – they're talking to their phone. I know. But the idea is there are people out there. And to me, I'm perfectly – we're all big people, right? It's $100, $100. But let me know that on the front end so I can make that decision, right? Or not. I say, hey, do I really need that? Okay, you know what? $100 is a great deal because I've been looking at it. everybody else was going to be two to three hundred. So a hundred bucks, a great deal. Right. And I always joke about there is no free lunches. Right. So I always say, hey, what else can I do for you? Right. And so that way I don't feel like I'm taking advantage of anybody or any more than I want to be taking advantage of. Right. So there's always like, hey, what's the give and the get. Right. So everybody's on the same page. Everything's above the board. And are we trading? Are we bartering? Are we referring? What are we doing here? What is the give and the get? Right. And it's perfectly OK. We're all adults. and we understand there's no free lunches, right? But the idea that somebody's going to go, oh yeah, let me hook you up. Oh, by the way, here's $100 or is it $37.50, right? I'm always wary of the guys that tell you, I'm not letting you hook you up. Yeah. Now, Wing, I want to ask you, what do you think the biggest opportunity is that people are missing right now? The biggest opportunity right now is the human thing, the networking, because you can have the best idea, the best intention. But going at it by yourself because you don't think you need anybody and you don't think you want to share. Right. It's crazy because guess what? A hundred percent of nothing is nothing. Ten percent of a million bucks is a nice chunk of change. So the idea that you can work with other people and yes, you still take a chance. They might steal your idea. Right. But the odds of creating this team helps you amplify and get to success a lot quicker or to failure a lot quicker either way, right? So the idea that you can network with people that can help you grow your business, grow your idea, execute, whatever that means, right? I think it's still a big opportunity that not a lot of people understand. I could be first – I'm a firsthand witness to how important that is to you because when I go to a masterminds event, you're there. You're still going to every masterminds. You're still like collaborating with people. You firmly believe in the power of human connection. Yes. And you live it and you do it and you're an incredible genius networker. You're still charming. You're still always going to network events. You're still like making people laugh. You believe in that human connection. I do. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, when you get to the top of Mount Everest by yourself and there's nobody there to see that you got to the top, it means nothing. Right. It's just like when you go surf by yourself and you got the best wave of your life, but you turn around and nobody saw it. I don't care what you tell your friends to them. It never happened because nobody was there to share with you the experience. Right. so the whole idea that you can bring everybody for the ride and you're there when the team won when whatever happened you can celebrate with other people the concerts whatever that is because oh my god that was the best show ever but if nobody was there it's like yeah joe he's selfish you just didn't want to bother inviting us and and all of a sudden you're there by yourself and there's no celebration and life is about celebration these moments but you can only celebrated with people that were there That right That right And hopefully more people keep that vibe alive Now what the best piece of advice you would give a young entrepreneur right now I tell them, you may not know what you want to do for the rest of your life, but start eliminating the ones that you don't want to do. It's way quicker. I don't like this. I don't like that. Okay, great. Start checking them off until you figure out this. I really like this. now how do i make money doing this right so get rid of all the luggage all the access figure it out what you don't want to do way quicker that you don't like and then i like this is there a possibility that i can make a living doing this and that's where you're going to find the happiness because we all talked about if you love what you do it doesn't feel like work yeah and that's what keeps you so resilient and so you know so happy all the time it's like you really love what you do you're in the weeds you're going to these masterminds events you're cooking the food I mean, the founder of Wahoo's Taco, cooking the food. That sounds like a movie. It is. It's a great life. I mean, and I get to do it with some of the most amazing people on this planet. So for me, people say, hey, I would get to know these celebrities or these musicians. I'm like, you're out of your mind. I'm way out of their league. But the fact that I have a passion for my craft, they have a passion for their craft. That's what we meet in the middle. Because they're like, hey, at the end of the concert, it would be nothing like having great food or at the beginning of the concert. Right. And that's where we come together. It's a beautiful thing. Now, I'm going to get you some more coffee. Sure. Wing, if you were to put a special message on a billboard today that you wanted to tell the world, what would it say? get your shit together let's go that's a great billboard i like that i like that we have a special surprise okay we have a special guest calling in his name is dominic deangelis he's an upcoming chef and his dream is to open a restaurant like every chef wants to and he wants to be a restaurateur just like you okay but he wants to get some practical advice so he's going to ask some questions and see if we can help him out all right sounds good let's do it hey dom i'm joe shall be i'm your host here for the show thanks for calling in of course joe thank you all right so go ahead you got wing lamb the legend himself you got his attention yes how we doing um hey this is this is great because um as someone that wants to open their own restaurant very soon okay i have some questions so yeah fire away let's see let's start at the top first question Well, go ahead. You start or I'll start. Whatever you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, I I became a private chef six years ago. Pretty new to this. But I always was around food in my Italian household. And that was my love for it. But I pivoted careers. And, you know, it's been it hasn't been easy, but it's like it's going in the right direction finally. And I think it's time to open my first brick and mortar, as they say. So, yeah, I was just wondering. So, like, because I have so many questions. Like, mine isn't going to be a restaurant. I think they call it a fast, casual, high-end luxe. Okay. Is that the right term? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I was wondering, you know, what was the hardest part about opening your first restaurant that nobody warned you about? I would say that having been in the restaurant my entire life before opening my own was the amount of work outside of making food, right? So payroll, insurance, advertising, all the other functions besides making food that you don't think about, that consumes a huge – so for every hour of restaurant operation, you probably got about a half hour worth of paperwork, I call it, right? so that's one thing so somewhere in your group you need to have an accountant type an hr type and you know like basically an insurance you know like a lawyer kind of you know just to make sure that you're not going to get sued right so you got to have the human business part of the business in line which most restaurant guys never think about and that you know and that can make or break you literally really quickly because if you're not managing your cash flow and following all the rules taxes payroll all that other you know the functions right it's a big thing okay okay um That's true. Yeah, you're going to have a whole team. So if you were to build like a fast casual restaurant brand today, if you started from scratch, what would be your first move? The first thing that I would think about besides because I already know the back of the rest of the paperwork, right? Because unlike most restaurant chefs, I actually have a finance degree from college. So I'm a bean counter, right? So all my decisions, believe it or not, as crazy as they may sound, there's a financial upside and downside risk that I know, right? So it sounds crazy because people are like, hey, you're doing an event. I'm like, yes, but I'm getting paid to do an event. There's a difference between just going out and handing out free tacos on the street corner and getting paid to hand out free tacos on the street corner. Okay, so that's one. so if you are able to create stories around social media right give people a reason to come to you because what are you doing differently in your end of town that's different than all the other restaurants that are similar to you right so i don't know if you're going to do italian mexican caribbean i don't know what kind of food you're going to do but whatever that is it doesn't matter to me, but all it matters is how much different are you than everybody else that's providing something similar, right? So if you can then tell that on social media, people are going to go, oh my God, look at this. I've never seen anything like this, right? So that gives people a reason to try it, right? But then you've got to be able to follow up with it because is it going to be different? Yes. But now after they try it, why would they come back? because it was so much better and different than anything out there, right? So that's the key because it doesn't require a lot of money. But you've got to have some people that can influence the rest of the population to come into your restaurant. Your ad strategy needs to be on point because right now in this social media world, you've got to build your personal brand. Your food has to have a brand. You have to have a personal brand. So your marketing is the crux of everything now. And earlier on our show, we were talking about how social media could really make or break you, your business and your social media playbook has to just be like, you know, where are you launching? You have to have that ready and dialed and on point before you even launch your restaurant. Yeah. And I would say, you know, the one thing I tell all businesses, not just restaurant people, Specifically, guys are like dentists, accountants, people that study a specific skill set, a chef, right? Nobody fails because they're bad at what they do. It's like most restaurants close because they have bad food. In relative terms, all restaurants have really good food. The reason they fail, they can't get people in the doors. Yeah, yeah, marketing. Marketing and branding. What is your food type, by the way, that you're going to launch for Fast Cash? So let's just say it's a sandwich shop. It's a type of sandwich shop. I'll give you an example. Our friend Ike from Ike Sandwiches did a great job, and he did a great job in what? The sandwiches are good, but he did a great job building his personal brand. Oh, yeah. I've been to several L.A. parties, and he has his sandwiches there, and he has his cutouts. So one thing that Ike does really well, which he talked about earlier, Wing did, was networking, building his brand and networking. Wing said one of the most powerful things is networking because it doesn't really cost anything. Wing, until this very day, is at every Masterminds event. And you know who else is at every Masterminds event? Ike. Ike's there. So we know him really well. But I'm giving him as an example because he built a personal brand around him and his sandwiches. I'm definitely going to be the outgoing person in the business. Yeah, because you got to be. You got to be. Networking is a big part of your success because when you get with all the other masterminds in the industry, they're going to give you insights that you never even thought existed. I'm not even a restaurateur. I just know what I know from talking to Wing and being a consumer, right? Yeah. yeah i was gonna say and a brand enthusiast there's another sandwich guy in our end of town that you got to look at and i i've been busting his chops for i want to say probably maybe almost 20 years and you can google it it's called sessions s yeah matt so the same thing i used to joke with him that it goes you haven't made it until you drive a branded vehicle so he made it his mission to get a little sprinter van that was branded with sessions on it. And then he drives to my house and goes, you see, I made it. I'm like, okay. And his shtick is, he makes great sandwiches, but he does a lot with the lifeguards, right? Because his original story is literally five minutes from my house at the beach. So he constantly does stuff with the lifeguards, and that's his little shtick. Like after surfing, before surfing, very much like what I did with Oahu's. The difference is he was much closer to the ocean. He's a block away from the ocean where I'm a more of a, about a mile away. Now he's in a different state. Yeah. Oh, he's in different, yeah. He's in the, but what Matt's talent was, he didn't mention, Matt was a promoter. That was his gift. He was a promoter. So were you. Yeah. You know, you guys promoted first. So that's a gift. You got to be a major promoter. That's a major advertiser. That's how you make it. There's no, right. You can have a crappy sandwich and still make it and there's all types of use cases like that especially in like you know yeah desserts yeah you got all types of crappy food and crappy desserts that are just famous yeah just because they got great promotions great promotion we're talking to investors and i just don't know if i'm going to go that route yet or before get it you know a standalone store maybe maybe a food truck to to try it out but i don't know if that's the right move maybe i should just go right in to the store i i would say that not the reason not to go into a store is because of the overhead you're going to be stuck for at least a five-year lease that you don't want to be involved in i would say even before a food truck because the food truck is going to still cost you about 100 grand anyway i would get into you know like you were doing before privateer start and getting people to order you know especially offices and just become more instead of a private chef more of a private caterer and get that going and then build that and then all of a sudden start a store hey i appreciate the call in we got a run we got a hard stop in a couple minutes but we'll get we'll get your info we'll stay in touch with you thank you guys thank you guys great talking to you great meeting you we have a fun segment you're gonna love this segment all right what do i get something you've never done before on air okay we are gonna blindfold you right now and i promise we won't do anything bad to you. Okay. These are nice blindfolds. You look very nice. Yeah, look at this. This is quite chic. He's going to take a bite and he's going to have to guess which one is Waho's tacos. Oh, I'm not that good. Okay, there's three tacos in front of you. You're going to take a bite of each one and then tell me what taco you can get as well. A bite of each one? I'm about to make a mess right here. This is fine. Hold on. You're all catawampus. Here we go. You can stay there. You can get sauces. There is sauces. That one. Yeah. Okay, here's the first one. Put your hands over. There you go. Okay, this feels good. I did have a long switch over earlier, but I'm gonna... You don't have to guess now. Just keep all of them together. Okay, number one. Okay, this one is number two. That one was pretty good. Yeah, you have an advantage. You get to seat them first. That's okay. That one was pretty good, though. And you had to do beer battered? Like, how am I going to know? That's definitely right. Oh, you don't like that one. That's Wahoo. No. No? Yeah. Oh, not you. You almost put in your coffee cup. Dipping in taco coffee. Which one do you think the third one? The third one. Wait, you want to hear that? Nope. Oh, then it was the first one. Yep. You take your pint full off. Those are all really good, though. They're all really good. Yeah. Except the second one. It was good. But we're going to switch them up. I can't see. They're all good though. But at the end of the day, they're all good fish tacos. They're all good, yes. Okay, there we go. Alright, there we go. Duffle it around so it's not for a second there. Okay, put your hands out. This one's going to be the first taco. Oh. Oh. It's a great thing to do next one. Okay. I feel like A.S.T.A. He's so into tacos. This chef, he makes me hungry just watching him eat. Okay, number two. Number two? That's it. Wow. That's it. Good job, Wayne. You know your tacos. I don't like tacos. The lettuce is this. I mean, I got it right in the second try, so that was cool. Where was the third one from? Down from Rubio's, Wajo's, and Coastal Grill Fish Taco. Okay, so the Coastal Grill Fish Taco was the third one. Because Rubio's, we know that place. Yeah, yeah. Boring. Yeah, the last one was pretty good, yeah. Mine was good, yeah, yeah. Which taco do you think tastes the freshest? You know, it's one of those things about tacos. I never put anybody down because I love tacos. So whether they're my competitors or mine, I tell everybody, just go out and eat fish tacos. They're great. God bless you for your answer. Which taco would you order again other than yours? I probably ordered the last one. Yeah, that's the coastal fish taco. Yeah, that was pretty good. That was a good one. And you obviously knew which taco was Wahoos. Would you critique Wahoos at all? What would you do to make it better? Nothing. I mean, like I said, simple fish with a little bit of slaw on top, a little bit of the cream sauce. It's perfect. It was amazing. Yeah. I love your tacos. Thank you. Now, Wayne, what do you think makes a Wahoo's taco unique? The fact that we use Wahoo. No other fish taco place in America, if not in the world, uses Wahoo. That's some of the best fish on the planet. Yeah, it's the best fish on the planet. So we, wild caught, we're the only ones that use it. We're the largest buyer of Wahoo in America. That's the difference. The best fish. Those of you who don't know Oahu is, that is a hard fish to catch. Absolutely. A very hard fish to catch. Hard to catch, hard to find. Yeah, hard to find. You get them from Hawaii only? No, we get them from Fiji. Fiji, even better. Even better. Do you think I got a pretty sophisticated palate or I need to try some more tacos? You need to eat some more tacos. Wayne, thank you so much for coming on today's show. If people want to learn more about what you're doing or talk to you or meet you or get some counsel from you, how can they find you? They can email me. wing.lamb at wahoo.com. Wing.lamb. Guys, he gave you his email. Reach out to him. Thanks for jumping on today's show. It's always a pleasure. I look forward to having you back in a couple of years. See what you're doing. Making the thrifties empire global again. Absolutely. Bringing back low cost ice cream. Let's go. All right. Let's do this. Thank you.