Rick Rosenfield - California Pizza Kitchen Co-Founder | Two Federal Prosecutors Left the Courtroom and Built a $1B Pizza Empire

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You jumped into the pizza business.

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Why?

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We always wanted to be in the restaurant business, and we did.

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We had one idea after another.

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Finally, we got to the point where we said we've got to do it.

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When did you realize that you were right?

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The day we created barbecue chicken pizza.

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Today's guest is Rick Rosenfield, former federal prosecutor, defense attorney, and co-founder of California Pizza Kitchen.

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After spending years in law, Rick took the leap into the restaurant business and helped build CPK from a single restaurant into a global brand.

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In this conversation, he shares the story behind leaving law for pizza, finding the right people, and why partnership and ego can make all the difference.

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What is your secret for attracting and finding good people?

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We wanted to create a place where people were respected and they wanted to come to work.

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I think that's the key.

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What's the way to move past something productively when you have a disagreement?

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Neither of us had our egos vested in being right.

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If your ego says, I'm always right, and you can't accept that you could not be, you might not be right.

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I don't see black and white, I see gray.

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I'll always see the middle.

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My fitness pal is a success story partner.

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Now, there's this thing that happens when you start paying attention to what you eat.

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And I think we can all agree that we want to care about our health and our wellness and our nutrition.

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But more often than not, we just kind of think we eat clean.

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We think we eat healthy, but we're not really, really paying attention to every single meal and what makes up every single meal.

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But just by paying attention and starting to log and track what you eat, you start making better choices without really trying.

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And that surprised me because when I first started using the MyFitnessPal app, and I've been using it for a while now, it's a nutrition tracking app.

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And I started logging what I was eating.

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It started showing me my macros, which means how much protein, carbs, and fats I was getting.

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And then I started to understand why some days I felt good, high energy.

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Some days I felt like garbage because

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Those three things, proteins, carbs, fats, that's what your food is made out of.

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And the balance between them affects everything.

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So MyFitnessPal app truly changed my life when it came to managing my food, which managed and helped everything else.

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Now on the premium version of the app, it breaks down those numbers by meal.

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So not just seeing one calorie number for the day, I can see what's happening at breakfast versus lunch versus dinner, where my protein actually lands, whether I'm eating enough earlier in the day or piling everything on at night.

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And all of a sudden,

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When I'm crashing at 3, 4 p.m., well, I can take a look and see, it's not so surprising anymore based on what I ate or what I didn't eat.

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So that's what I mean when I say that MyFitnessPal is a great app for awareness.

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It's not obsessive, it's not stressful, it's not time-consuming, it's actually the opposite.

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Guessing is stressful.

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When you have all the information, the food you eat, your nutrition...

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becomes way easier to keep up with.

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Also, a lot of people stress out that logging food is gonna be very time consuming.

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It's not.

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And if it was annoying, I'd stop.

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But what I love about the app is that they've made it super, super simple.

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They've removed all friction in food logging, right?

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They have the largest food database out there.

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So whatever I'm eating is already in it.

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I can voice logs, so I can just say what I'm eating.

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They have a barcode scanner that handles all the package stuff.

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They have a tool called Meal Scan, which lets me point my camera at my plate and it breaks down all the macros and then logs it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever.

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And the app remembers my regular meals.

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And I'm really just in and out of the app in seconds.

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And on top of that, it connects with over 40 fitness apps and wearables.

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So my workouts, my nutrition, they're all in one place.

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See, food is the foundation of everything.

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your energy, your sleep, your weight, your recovery, your performance at work, at home.

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And I really believe that when you start to pay attention to what you eat, every single part of your life improves.

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And to be honest, for me, it's the most useful tool because when I see the information, when I see what I'm eating,

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and I feel the effects of having good nutrition and good food at the right time, the decisions on what to eat become obvious.

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Not because someone told me to eat better.

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It's because I have the data.

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And the data makes it super, super easy to stay on track.

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So please do yourself a favor.

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Go to podcast.myfitnesspal.com and use code SCOTT.

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That's S-C-O-T-T, all uppercase letters, for 15% off MyFitnessPal Premium.

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That is podcast.myfitnesspal.com, code SCOTT, for 15% off.

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My Fitness Pal Premium.

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Rick, so you went from prosecuting organized crime to opening a pizza restaurant.

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Everybody was very surprised when two lawyers were going to the pizza business.

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What did you know that they didn't?

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Absolutely nothing.

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We really didn't.

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You jumped into the pizza business.

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Why?

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It was by a law partner and I.

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So we didn't go straight from federal prosecutors.

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We were both federal prosecutors together.

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Then we were criminal defense attorneys for 12 years as a partnership.

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And we always wanted to be in the restaurant business.

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And we did.

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We had one idea after another.

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And every time we got close, some client would come along with a big retainer, and we'd be back practicing law again.

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But finally, finally, we got to the point where we said we've got to do it.

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It's it was a golden handcuffs a little bit like the money was very good.

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Oh, absolutely.

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That was that was the critical reason.

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But not to not to divert from from the business story too much, but I think that just like go into a little bit about some of the fun stuff that you've done pre CPK when you were still working as a lawyer.

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I've lived a very interesting life.

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I grew up in Chicago, and then right out of law school, I got appointed through the honors program to the Department of Justice in Washington.

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I was writing briefs to the Supreme Court, and that was very heady stuff for a young kid.

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And then went to L.A., fell in love with L.A., and became a federal prosecutor there.

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And then I had—I'm 26 years old.

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And I had the biggest case of my career.

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I was involved in prosecuting the heads of the Detroit and St. Louis mob for holding a hidden interest in the Frontier Hotel in Vegas.

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So as far as I know, that's the only case ever.

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We always hear the stories of the mob owning Vegas.

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But as far as I know, I'm the only case that ever prosecuted and convicted anybody of doing that.

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And during that trial, which is really amazing, it was a very big trial in federal court in Los Angeles, and it was the first time that the metal screening devices, magnetometers, had ever been used in federal court in Los Angeles.

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And during that trial, the Godfather movie came out.

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And the jury wasn't sequestered, so it became a little issue.

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You've, with your background as a prosecutor, dealing with pretty aggressive, hard people, I guess that tees you up to be a good business person too.

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But even as a prosecutor, you're never stressed out about people coming after you or?

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People have asked me that.

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I've always wondered, like if you're always worried for your life.

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People have always asked, right, were you afraid of these mobsters?

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And I wasn't.

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And I think in part, I mean, all the lore about the mafia, but the fact is in those days, the mafia did not have a history of going after FBI agents, federal prosecutors.

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It would bring the heat down on you.

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Right.

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So honestly, I don't really remember being afraid at all.

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That's funny.

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But it does set you up so that all the different things you deal with in your business life are not so stressful when you're dealing with people that are...

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Well, I think that's exactly true.

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I mean, you know, I thought...

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When you're dealing with somebody who's probably killed a few people, all of a sudden a contract with a landlord doesn't seem so stressful.

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Not particularly.

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Exactly.

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No, I think that's true.

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Being defense attorneys, you're making really high-pressure decisions, both as prosecutor, defense attorney, on your feet during court trials, right?

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The rest of that stuff sort of rolled over your back.

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And then also Larry and I together, once we came together on an agreement—

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You know, we are a pretty tough act.

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I'm sure some people didn't glove us.

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But out of all the different businesses, so you're obviously very good friends.

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You're practicing law together.

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You've had so much of your career together.

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Out of all the different things you could do together, what makes somebody want to go into the food industry?

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I think so many people feel the same way.

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So how many people always say, I could open a restaurant or I'd love to open a restaurant.

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It's a natural human thing.

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And why is that?

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Because people love the connection.

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They love entertaining their friends.

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Both my partner and I love to cook.

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We love having dinner parties where we were cooking and experimenting with different menu items.

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And it seemed natural.

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Even though it's probably one of the hardest businesses to do.

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Oh, absolutely.

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That's what I say.

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You know, I do and I've reflected upon it.

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If I knew then what I know now, would I have done it?

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And the answer is I really don't know.

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Fortunately, we didn't know what we were getting into.

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I think that there's a beautiful thing in not having experience, like the weight of all this experience in an industry.

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And it just lets you take all these risks that you probably wouldn't take.

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It was absolutely naivete.

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It was naivete coupled with hubris.

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That's so funny.

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I think also about, you know, I interview a lot of people and some of them are close friends.

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And we talk about after they sold the company, like where they're putting their money.

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And for some reason, it seems like 100% of people that put money into a restaurant lose their money.

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It is so true.

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You know, it's interesting.

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One of our 22 original investors was Jane Seymour, the actress.

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And Jane's husband was her business manager.

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And of course, he advised all of his clients to not invest.

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But she convinced him to let her and let them invest.

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And it worked out.

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So finally, you have all these different restaurant concepts.

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What was the reason why with California Pizza Kitchen, why was that the one that you didn't quit and go back to practicing?

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Well, we'd come off a long trial in San Francisco, a four-month fraud trial.

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My daughter was two, and I really had had enough, and I think Larry had too.

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I had seen this pasta concept, cafeteria concept in Chicago, which is my hometown, and I had a lot of fun.

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And at that time, I was a runner and running marathons, and carbohydrate loading was really in.

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I said, well, that's really great.

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These fresh pastas, just a perfect idea.

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So I told Larry about it.

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And we came home from the trial, and we saw a restaurant like that in a mall in Glendale, California.

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And in that afternoon, on the way home, after seeing that, we saw some pizza going around.

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And on the way back to the office, we started kicking around.

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Well, how about this new style of pizza, this California style pizza?

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And by the time we got back to our office in Beverly Hills, the concept had changed entirely.

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So what was the first concept then?

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Well, the first concept was the pasta cafeteria, no pizza.

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Then add pizza when we saw it.

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And then by the time we got home, it's like, forget the pasta cafeteria idea.

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Let's do this new style of pizza that's emerging called California style.

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It was in its complete infancy, and it had been started by Alice Waters at Berkeley.

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Chez Panisse.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And then Wolfgang Puck introduced duck sausage and smoked salmon pizza at Spago, which was so celebrity-oriented.

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And so our original concept was, let's use that idea of these new original pizzas and put it in a family-friendly restaurant.

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And we thought of it as that time as Spago for the masses.

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Yeah.

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But in hindsight, it makes sense why what you created worked out.

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But at the time, it was just you just sort of following your intuition.

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It was purely intuition.

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Because you had no idea.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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We had no idea.

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We had no idea.

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But...

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When we went to the bank, we borrowed a quarter of a million dollars, $250,000 on the strength of our law practice.

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Well, plus mortgaging our homes.

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You mortgage your house?

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Mortgage the house.

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Both of you?

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Yes, both of us.

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Plus you put like a lien on the law practice?

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Yes, literally.

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And we signed personal guarantees on the lease of this little space in Beverly Hills.

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Oh my God.

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So we were all in.

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And then the banker asked me to write a business plan.

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Well, I didn't do anything about business plans.

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I was a trial lawyer.

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But I sat down, I wrote a business plan.

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I said, well, we're going to create California Pizza Kitchen.

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It will be the third major type of pizza in the U.S., along with New York and Chicago.

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Sorry about Boston and Detroit, but that's pretty much the state of it.

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We said, we're going to define this new category of pizza called California Style in the U.S.

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And in the future, oh, we're going to make it international, national and international.

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And to add to that, I added, and in the future, California-style pizza will be defined by whatever California Pizza Kitchen says it is.

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That's before we had a menu.

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So you did say a little bit of hubris.

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Oh, a lot of hubris.

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A little more than a little bit, because this is not something you came from.

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You have no idea really how to succeed in the restaurant industry, but you're saying we're betting on ourselves.

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We're literally putting our money where our mouth is.

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And this is not only going to be a successful business.

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But this is going to be the standard for what people, when, you know, what's the, I don't know what the term is, but when you say, when a brand becomes like a verb, like the brand is going to be synonymous, not with a verb, but with a verb.

223
00:14:45.062 --> 00:14:46.742
The entire... Category.

224
00:14:46.802 --> 00:14:47.483
Category, yes.

225
00:14:47.523 --> 00:14:49.043
Category, that's how we intended.

226
00:14:49.063 --> 00:14:49.663
It was crazy.

227
00:14:50.003 --> 00:14:53.924
What was the thing, because obviously you're taking money out, you're starting this.

228
00:14:54.984 --> 00:14:56.745
When did you realize that you were right?

229
00:14:57.205 --> 00:15:00.065
The day we created barbecue chicken pizza.

230
00:15:00.806 --> 00:15:01.066
Why?

231
00:15:01.566 --> 00:15:07.107
So we brought this original, the original chef from Spago had left, original pizza chef.

232
00:15:08.367 --> 00:15:10.488
And we hired him as a consultant.

233
00:15:11.226 --> 00:15:23.873
And that original menu had rabbit sausage pizza on it, duck sausage pizza on it, radicchio pine nut, grape leaf, and barbecue chicken pizza.

234
00:15:24.754 --> 00:15:31.638
And even before we opened, when we tasted this barbecue chicken pizza, that was the light bulb.

235
00:15:32.418 --> 00:15:33.399
It all came together.

236
00:15:33.419 --> 00:15:39.503
And then we opened, and 70% of our pizzas sold were barbecue chicken pizza.

237
00:15:40.703 --> 00:15:56.875
literally the day we opened the first version of of of the restaurant you were not cooking yourself you you had to find good people to sort of bring this vision to life now somebody who has no idea how to find like a lot of people listen to this podcast are entrepreneurs

238
00:15:58.256 --> 00:16:07.481
And the hardest thing for an entrepreneur to do is to hire somebody, a really important piece of their business, without really having that skill set.

239
00:16:08.041 --> 00:16:11.363
And the way that I think about it, it's not usually hiring a chef.

240
00:16:11.423 --> 00:16:16.866
It's usually like a software developer who has to hire like a head of sales or something like that.

241
00:16:18.247 --> 00:16:24.510
But I feel like the average software developer, even if they, even if they like,

242
00:16:25.651 --> 00:16:26.912
Don't know much about sales.

243
00:16:27.012 --> 00:16:31.655
There's a lot of places you can go and figure out now what to look for in that good hire.

244
00:16:31.855 --> 00:16:34.516
There's probably some podcasts you can listen to and some books you can read.

245
00:16:35.317 --> 00:16:41.861
But when you started this, when you started California Pizza Kitchen, you're a prosecutor and you have to hire a chef.

246
00:16:42.954 --> 00:16:51.302
Nothing in your background is, from what I understand, going to give you any experience on how to hire a good chef or how to hire a good restauranteur.

247
00:16:51.322 --> 00:16:53.224
I don't even know what's in a restaurant, to be quite honest.

248
00:16:53.244 --> 00:16:54.165
I've never worked in the food.

249
00:16:54.785 --> 00:16:58.929
But also, like, there's no resources to find the right people.

250
00:16:59.650 --> 00:17:04.294
But what it sounds like is from the get-go, this was very successful.

251
00:17:04.334 --> 00:17:06.777
So I guess the question, teeing up this question,

252
00:17:07.417 --> 00:17:11.401
Sorry, I'm going long-winded because I just think it's fascinating how you were so successful so quickly.

253
00:17:12.062 --> 00:17:13.783
And I know that there's been ups and downs.

254
00:17:14.804 --> 00:17:22.812
But the question is, how do you find that good first team to actually execute and not do what a lot of people do and screw up those hires?

255
00:17:23.173 --> 00:17:24.294
It's great questions.

256
00:17:24.994 --> 00:17:27.417
And so, in fact, we had a horrible shift.

257
00:17:28.521 --> 00:17:28.741
Right.

258
00:17:29.262 --> 00:17:34.370
I mean, he came up with barbecue chicken pizza, but he didn't want us anywhere near the restaurant.

259
00:17:34.390 --> 00:17:37.955
He thought you two lawyers stay out of the restaurant, leave it to me.

260
00:17:38.416 --> 00:17:41.961
So he was, we got lucky there.

261
00:17:42.141 --> 00:17:43.463
However, our first hire...

262
00:17:44.276 --> 00:17:45.017
was critical.

263
00:17:45.937 --> 00:17:49.299
We were being served in a restaurant in Santa Monica at lunch.

264
00:17:49.840 --> 00:17:52.361
This is around the time we signed the lease.

265
00:17:52.662 --> 00:18:00.507
So six months before we opened the first restaurant and a woman by the name of Julie Carruthers, she was 23 years old.

266
00:18:01.408 --> 00:18:11.734
She was an aspiring actress who like many actresses in California was working a restaurant and she was the epitome of what we thought would be great service.

267
00:18:11.754 --> 00:18:11.955
So,

268
00:18:12.695 --> 00:18:15.836
So we said to her, we're starting a restaurant chain.

269
00:18:16.576 --> 00:18:18.036
Not that we're starting a restaurant.

270
00:18:18.056 --> 00:18:18.997
Starting a restaurant chain.

271
00:18:19.037 --> 00:18:20.457
We're starting a restaurant chain.

272
00:18:20.837 --> 00:18:23.197
Would you come to interview with us?

273
00:18:23.318 --> 00:18:23.678
Okay.

274
00:18:24.318 --> 00:18:26.238
Well, Larry and I didn't know anything about interviewing.

275
00:18:26.358 --> 00:18:31.860
So when she came to our office the next day, which she did, we didn't interview her.

276
00:18:31.900 --> 00:18:33.780
We sold her on our vision.

277
00:18:35.493 --> 00:18:36.634
Here's what we're going to do.

278
00:18:36.914 --> 00:18:40.516
And she left her job, and she came to work for us.

279
00:18:40.616 --> 00:18:49.161
And then she worked with my wife, Esther, who actually had some experience growing up in her family's diner in Birmingham, Alabama.

280
00:18:49.201 --> 00:18:51.683
And then she was a stewardess.

281
00:18:52.243 --> 00:18:55.485
Before there were flight attendants, there were stewardesses.

282
00:18:56.066 --> 00:18:59.568
And they worked on creating the opening training manual.

283
00:19:00.428 --> 00:19:07.891
And then Esther went to work as the hostess for the first year in the front, and she was incredible for our success.

284
00:19:08.291 --> 00:19:11.372
The third founder, she's the unsung third founder.

285
00:19:12.212 --> 00:19:25.117
But we had Julie who then hired, and along with Esther hired those original servers, and we got some great people as our original servers.

286
00:19:25.197 --> 00:19:26.698
One of which was Sean Howey,

287
00:19:27.298 --> 00:19:37.460
who later went to law school and became part of the defense team in the OJ case and then was, I think, the managing partner of the Cochrane Law Firm.

288
00:19:37.780 --> 00:19:39.901
She was an original server at CPK.

289
00:19:40.341 --> 00:19:42.802
Obviously, you've become very good over the years.

290
00:19:43.882 --> 00:19:49.243
And even before we started this podcast, we were talking about, you know, there's so many different things you can teach and talk about.

291
00:19:49.263 --> 00:19:50.463
What do you want to focus on?

292
00:19:50.483 --> 00:19:51.284
And you were like, people.

293
00:19:51.304 --> 00:19:54.124
I want to talk about people and the importance of people and culture.

294
00:19:54.164 --> 00:19:55.705
And we'll go there eventually.

295
00:19:57.445 --> 00:20:00.989
But what is your secret for attracting and finding good people?

296
00:20:01.009 --> 00:20:06.676
Like, even when you don't know what to look for, it seems like you find really good people.

297
00:20:07.056 --> 00:20:12.022
I think you have to, from day one, create a work environment where people want to work.

298
00:20:13.697 --> 00:20:22.065
So what happened to us, because we had all this class with this chef, we were clashing with him from day one.

299
00:20:22.305 --> 00:20:24.687
And he was just a consultant.

300
00:20:24.727 --> 00:20:26.028
Didn't want us in the restaurant.

301
00:20:26.068 --> 00:20:26.509
We were in.

302
00:20:27.069 --> 00:20:32.414
He lasted maybe six weeks or two months until he blew up in the restaurant.

303
00:20:33.355 --> 00:20:35.116
And we had to fire him on the spot.

304
00:20:36.617 --> 00:20:41.160
And now we were at it really full-time, Esther and I and Larry.

305
00:20:41.360 --> 00:20:42.320
It's the first thing we did.

306
00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:47.383
Now, here we had, within the first two months, here we...

307
00:20:48.324 --> 00:20:50.827
had this wildly successful start.

308
00:20:51.708 --> 00:20:53.090
We had the chef.

309
00:20:53.610 --> 00:20:56.453
It was oil and water from day one.

310
00:20:57.214 --> 00:20:59.417
Finally, we couldn't support him.

311
00:20:59.437 --> 00:21:00.958
He did something we couldn't support him.

312
00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:02.320
We terminated him.

313
00:21:03.001 --> 00:21:07.206
And Esther and I and Larry were in my law office, and we sat on the floor and we cried.

314
00:21:08.463 --> 00:21:10.144
We were scared out of our minds.

315
00:21:10.544 --> 00:21:12.065
This is like we're actually in this now.

316
00:21:12.085 --> 00:21:13.627
Yeah, we're in it now.

317
00:21:13.747 --> 00:21:14.907
We don't have a safety net.

318
00:21:16.288 --> 00:21:22.753
We fortunately did have a cook that the chef had brought in that could run the restaurant.

319
00:21:23.473 --> 00:21:24.454
But what we saw...

320
00:21:26.117 --> 00:21:32.679
which maybe shouldn't have surprised us, but it seemed endemic in the restaurant business at the time.

321
00:21:33.139 --> 00:21:35.620
The front of the house and the back of the house didn't get along.

322
00:21:36.340 --> 00:21:38.121
They were culturally very different.

323
00:21:39.141 --> 00:21:41.262
And we said, this is not going to work.

324
00:21:42.342 --> 00:21:43.343
We have to get along.

325
00:21:44.742 --> 00:21:50.126
We have to respect each other, and we can talk more about it, about what became our culture known as ROC.

326
00:21:51.406 --> 00:21:59.291
But from the moment, way before we created a culture or even knew the word, we knew we needed it.

327
00:21:59.611 --> 00:22:03.774
And so our mantra always was to respect people.

328
00:22:04.314 --> 00:22:07.516
We told people, we just made it up on the spot.

329
00:22:07.976 --> 00:22:08.557
We said, listen...

330
00:22:09.402 --> 00:22:10.483
We're all going to get along.

331
00:22:10.523 --> 00:22:13.124
We have to get along.

332
00:22:13.204 --> 00:22:18.707
We're a company that's going to be colorblind, genderblind, religionblind, educationblind.

333
00:22:18.727 --> 00:22:21.849
We don't care where you came from, what your background is.

334
00:22:21.869 --> 00:22:27.212
Let's just all get along here and figure out how to do this.

335
00:22:27.872 --> 00:22:29.834
And so I think in answer to your question,

336
00:22:30.634 --> 00:22:42.282
What I've always believed, and Larry too, my partner, is we wanted to create a place where people were respected and they wanted to come to work.

337
00:22:43.723 --> 00:22:44.803
I think that's the key.

338
00:22:45.144 --> 00:22:49.606
It's to create a place where people want to work.

339
00:22:50.287 --> 00:22:56.471
It seems like such a simple thing, but I feel like not enough people focus on that, that creating an environment where people actually enjoy showing up.

340
00:22:57.051 --> 00:23:10.678
You know, it became, and we can talk about it now, ultimately in later years when we were asked to create a mission statement and we sat down and we said, what, to sell more pizzas than anybody in the world?

341
00:23:11.098 --> 00:23:12.579
That's not our mission, right?

342
00:23:12.659 --> 00:23:16.341
I mean, but we came up with ROC.

343
00:23:17.562 --> 00:23:23.925
R for respect, O for opportunity, C for communication, and K for kindness.

344
00:23:24.932 --> 00:23:28.553
And we had rock stars, which was a complete coincidence.

345
00:23:28.753 --> 00:23:29.914
It was completely organic.

346
00:23:29.954 --> 00:23:32.394
It wasn't a gimmick, but it actually worked.

347
00:23:32.935 --> 00:23:34.715
But what's the key word in that one?

348
00:23:35.215 --> 00:23:35.675
Kindness.

349
00:23:36.676 --> 00:23:40.297
You want to be, you want to work and be around kind people.

350
00:23:40.817 --> 00:23:44.458
We use that as how we decided to promote people or not.

351
00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:46.179
Were they rock stars?

352
00:23:47.116 --> 00:23:47.856
Were they kind?

353
00:23:48.677 --> 00:23:49.257
I love this.

354
00:23:50.257 --> 00:24:06.645
There's so many places where I've worked in my career where kindness is unfortunately not taken into consideration, but performance in some other way, some other KPS, some other performance metric is.

355
00:24:07.265 --> 00:24:11.327
And I think it turns a lot of really good people off from working for the company.

356
00:24:11.707 --> 00:24:13.208
If they see that, for example,

357
00:24:13.788 --> 00:24:21.838
There's, you know, the asshole salesperson that always achieves and overachieves, but like they're a very toxic personality.

358
00:24:22.278 --> 00:24:27.304
I think the kindness, like kindness attracts really good people too, really talented people.

359
00:24:27.858 --> 00:24:28.559
That was the key.

360
00:24:29.820 --> 00:24:30.641
Plus, you know what else?

361
00:24:31.882 --> 00:24:32.322
Training.

362
00:24:32.983 --> 00:24:33.263
Yes.

363
00:24:33.883 --> 00:24:35.185
And so it was very interesting.

364
00:24:35.865 --> 00:24:47.736
We, from day one, again, involved because of Julie and Nestor, too, is we required every server to know every menu item, every single, every menu.

365
00:24:48.296 --> 00:24:51.078
every recipe in every minute and gave them tests.

366
00:24:51.138 --> 00:25:02.947
In fact, in later years, one of my friends who had got his son a job at the CPK told me his son said he studied harder for his finals at CPK than his finals at Harvard.

367
00:25:03.647 --> 00:25:07.410
So you focused on kindness, education, and then like everything else took care of itself.

368
00:25:07.430 --> 00:25:14.936
The thing about training, think about having those tests at the beginning, weeded out people who weren't willing to do the work.

369
00:25:16.942 --> 00:25:19.604
to spend the time to actually get the job.

370
00:25:19.904 --> 00:25:20.844
Yeah.

371
00:25:20.984 --> 00:25:26.087
And so that became self-fulfilling or self-weeding in a sense.

372
00:25:26.467 --> 00:25:30.268
That first year, what was the hardest thing that you had to deal with?

373
00:25:30.428 --> 00:25:34.550
And was it figuring out the business?

374
00:25:34.911 --> 00:25:38.392
Was it sort of dealing with your own anxiety about going all in?

375
00:25:38.412 --> 00:25:40.013
Like what was the first year?

376
00:25:40.113 --> 00:25:44.695
I think that breaks a lot of entrepreneurs and they're not ready for what's coming to them.

377
00:25:44.875 --> 00:25:50.337
Well, the first step, signing the lease with a personal guarantee.

378
00:25:50.657 --> 00:25:51.377
That's stressful.

379
00:25:51.797 --> 00:25:53.238
So stress one.

380
00:25:53.538 --> 00:25:54.758
Two, mortgaging your home.

381
00:25:54.778 --> 00:25:55.938
Okay.

382
00:25:56.699 --> 00:25:57.019
Okay.

383
00:25:57.939 --> 00:25:59.840
For a business you didn't know anything about.

384
00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:03.561
So we had to believe in ourselves, obviously.

385
00:26:04.641 --> 00:26:07.662
And then, of course, the early stresses with that chef.

386
00:26:08.815 --> 00:26:14.302
But those were, I mean, as I said, sitting on the floor and crying, that was real.

387
00:26:14.863 --> 00:26:21.291
We were scared out of our minds because at that point, we started off as wildly successful.

388
00:26:21.311 --> 00:26:22.512
I mean, wildly.

389
00:26:22.953 --> 00:26:23.173
People.

390
00:26:24.054 --> 00:26:25.675
all because of the barbecue chicken pizza.

391
00:26:26.275 --> 00:26:29.137
People were saying, you know, I don't even like pizza.

392
00:26:29.237 --> 00:26:30.298
I love this, right?

393
00:26:30.978 --> 00:26:42.465
That was the light bulb for us, and we were packed, and it was a tiny little restaurant, and we'd have 30, 40 people waiting on the street to get in to this restaurant, which was its own billboard, right?

394
00:26:42.525 --> 00:26:45.287
So we didn't have that issue.

395
00:26:45.647 --> 00:26:48.809
We weren't really worried about managing costs at that point.

396
00:26:48.869 --> 00:26:49.730
We weren't.

397
00:26:50.390 --> 00:26:51.611
We were not managing costs.

398
00:26:51.911 --> 00:26:53.132
We wouldn't even know how, right?

399
00:26:53.172 --> 00:26:53.332
But—

400
00:26:53.812 --> 00:26:57.796
But that was the number one fear.

401
00:26:57.836 --> 00:27:04.642
And then the stress over getting rid of that chef and being left to pick up those pieces and figure it out.

402
00:27:05.322 --> 00:27:07.705
Do you think you could have done this alone?

403
00:27:08.766 --> 00:27:09.646
Without my partner?

404
00:27:10.007 --> 00:27:10.547
Without Larry.

405
00:27:10.827 --> 00:27:12.289
I don't know the answer to that.

406
00:27:12.329 --> 00:27:13.530
I'm glad I didn't have to.

407
00:27:14.962 --> 00:27:17.604
Meaning we had a unique relationship.

408
00:27:17.924 --> 00:27:22.388
I mean, we were best friends, law partners for 40 plus years.

409
00:27:22.908 --> 00:27:28.172
But in that point for 12 or 13 years, we trusted each other 100%.

410
00:27:29.213 --> 00:27:30.013
And we were lawyers.

411
00:27:30.053 --> 00:27:32.935
We never necessarily started from the same spot.

412
00:27:33.316 --> 00:27:34.917
We've debated like crazy.

413
00:27:35.437 --> 00:27:36.138
We were lawyers.

414
00:27:36.578 --> 00:27:37.279
And we were worse yet.

415
00:27:37.299 --> 00:27:39.120
We were trial lawyers.

416
00:27:39.520 --> 00:27:41.442
But when we came to a conclusion,

417
00:27:42.357 --> 00:27:43.478
We backed each other up.

418
00:27:43.498 --> 00:27:45.018
We didn't do I told you so's.

419
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:46.499
We didn't look back.

420
00:27:47.019 --> 00:27:48.920
It was our joint conclusion.

421
00:27:49.541 --> 00:27:51.862
So I don't know if I could have done it alone.

422
00:27:52.222 --> 00:27:53.383
Fortunately, I didn't have to.

423
00:27:53.963 --> 00:27:57.965
I think that it's so hard to find that person to partner with.

424
00:27:58.045 --> 00:27:59.026
It's very, very hard.

425
00:27:59.146 --> 00:28:03.508
I think that it's a superpower when you can find that person you can trust explicitly.

426
00:28:04.668 --> 00:28:08.589
Um, but it's like, it's like a, it's like a marriage at the end of the day.

427
00:28:08.629 --> 00:28:12.750
Like you're, you're spending a lot of your life with this person building this business.

428
00:28:13.571 --> 00:28:24.234
How do you, I mean, outside of working with somebody for such a long time before you go into business together, how does somebody find someone that they can be that candid with it?

429
00:28:24.254 --> 00:28:25.294
They could trust that much.

430
00:28:25.402 --> 00:28:28.284
Boy, that's like finding a spouse, right?

431
00:28:28.404 --> 00:28:31.066
I mean, I think, oh, it is.

432
00:28:32.087 --> 00:28:34.469
There is no simple formula for that.

433
00:28:34.489 --> 00:28:40.594
You have to look, I guess, number one, you have to look for people with your same values, right?

434
00:28:40.754 --> 00:28:43.316
And trust your instincts.

435
00:28:44.740 --> 00:28:48.282
You know, it's interesting, too, that I listened about a year ago.

436
00:28:48.322 --> 00:28:53.264
I was watching a cable TV, maybe a restaurant industry program about.

437
00:28:53.284 --> 00:29:00.427
I saw this pizza chef owner, pizza shop owner from New Jersey, and he was very successful.

438
00:29:00.687 --> 00:29:09.911
And he was lamenting, I can never, ever open another restaurant because I can't find anybody I can trust.

439
00:29:10.431 --> 00:29:13.513
I can't find anybody, you know, that cares as much as I do.

440
00:29:14.273 --> 00:29:18.080
And I sort of wished I could have screamed into the TV and said, you're right.

441
00:29:18.140 --> 00:29:22.928
You will never find anybody that cares as much as you do.

442
00:29:22.968 --> 00:29:23.569
You're the owner.

443
00:29:24.471 --> 00:29:26.454
It doesn't mean you can't find people who care.

444
00:29:28.734 --> 00:29:31.916
You have to find people that share your vision, that you treat well.

445
00:29:32.416 --> 00:29:34.957
Those are the things that matter.

446
00:29:35.218 --> 00:29:38.760
But picking a partner, I think you've got to trust your instincts.

447
00:29:39.320 --> 00:29:46.905
Part of the book, it talks about how to, like with a partner, solve problems without fighting when you have completely different perspectives on something.

448
00:29:46.945 --> 00:29:51.908
And because you were both lawyers, I'm sure, like you mentioned, it comes up, that happened quite a bit.

449
00:29:52.128 --> 00:29:52.708
We do fight.

450
00:29:53.048 --> 00:29:55.770
So, okay, so say you fight.

451
00:29:55.870 --> 00:30:05.754
Sometimes you disagree, sometimes you do fight, but ultimately what's the way to move past something productively when you have a disagreement?

452
00:30:06.114 --> 00:30:10.817
The way I've thought about it all these years is that we both had very strong egos.

453
00:30:11.517 --> 00:30:14.678
Neither of us had our egos vested in being right.

454
00:30:16.399 --> 00:30:17.740
There is where the problem becomes.

455
00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:20.121
If your ego says, I'm always right,

456
00:30:21.345 --> 00:30:25.808
And you can't accept that you might not be right.

457
00:30:26.369 --> 00:30:30.031
But again, I think my law background comes in there.

458
00:30:31.112 --> 00:30:39.098
As a lawyer training, and having been both a prosecutor and defense attorney, you learn how to argue both sides.

459
00:30:39.899 --> 00:30:43.121
So I think something in my life has always been true about me.

460
00:30:43.661 --> 00:30:45.102
I don't see black and white.

461
00:30:45.162 --> 00:30:45.823
I see gray.

462
00:30:47.484 --> 00:30:48.525
I always see the middle.

463
00:30:49.830 --> 00:30:56.572
And that can also, so that makes you more empathetic to how someone else views the situation because they see their perspective.

464
00:30:56.592 --> 00:30:59.612
You know, I heard the line, I think it was attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

465
00:30:59.632 --> 00:31:01.573
I'm not sure that's a correct attribution.

466
00:31:01.973 --> 00:31:06.374
They said no matter how thin you make a pancake, it still has two sides.

467
00:31:06.974 --> 00:31:11.155
You said before when you're building CPK that you decided to be bold.

468
00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:17.284
And we're talking about right partner values alignment.

469
00:31:17.985 --> 00:31:21.309
Was that both of you that had the same vision from the get-go?

470
00:31:21.509 --> 00:31:25.473
Or was one of you pushing the other to think bigger?

471
00:31:25.774 --> 00:31:28.617
I think we both wanted to be out of go.

472
00:31:28.637 --> 00:31:29.818
We both wanted to do this.

473
00:31:31.136 --> 00:31:36.261
I was quicker to want to sign the lease than Larry was.

474
00:31:36.381 --> 00:31:37.962
So you had like a very high risk tolerance.

475
00:31:38.043 --> 00:31:38.803
Right.

476
00:31:39.063 --> 00:31:43.588
And I think Larry was a little more risk averse.

477
00:31:44.068 --> 00:31:46.691
And I think in part it was because of his father.

478
00:31:47.111 --> 00:31:47.471
Right.

479
00:31:47.511 --> 00:31:49.033
He didn't want to fail his father.

480
00:31:49.053 --> 00:31:51.975
And I didn't have that issue.

481
00:31:53.260 --> 00:31:55.842
And that's because my father had passed away.

482
00:31:55.942 --> 00:32:08.791
I think that also a lot of people, the job they take, the business they build, their worldview, it's heavily influenced by parents.

483
00:32:08.991 --> 00:32:11.152
And it's not a bad thing, it's just a reality.

484
00:32:11.172 --> 00:32:17.216
And I think this is a total aside and maybe you have a thought on this because you did take your life into your own hands.

485
00:32:17.797 --> 00:32:17.957
But

486
00:32:20.435 --> 00:32:27.100
I think that a lot of people, they would be a lot happier if they focused on goals that were actually theirs and not their parents.

487
00:32:27.660 --> 00:32:33.745
So in my case, since we're on exactly that, my father passed when I was 26.

488
00:32:34.626 --> 00:32:37.468
My mother passed away right before I opened.

489
00:32:37.568 --> 00:32:40.090
So I was just turning 40.

490
00:32:40.150 --> 00:32:48.156
This is that when I saw that restaurant in Chicago that interests me, it was that I was back in Chicago for my mother's funeral.

491
00:32:48.856 --> 00:32:49.717
And I was running.

492
00:32:49.737 --> 00:32:51.838
I tore my hamstring.

493
00:32:51.858 --> 00:32:54.039
I was running through it.

494
00:32:54.099 --> 00:32:59.542
I was running 10 miles a day on the beach, along not the other beach, but along the lake.

495
00:33:00.403 --> 00:33:04.885
And this was a midlife or 40-year-old crisis, right?

496
00:33:04.906 --> 00:33:06.206
And that's it.

497
00:33:06.246 --> 00:33:06.727
I'm done.

498
00:33:07.887 --> 00:33:09.868
I was struggling practicing law.

499
00:33:10.109 --> 00:33:13.471
Struggling meaning that I no longer...

500
00:33:14.471 --> 00:33:15.512
loved it the way I did.

501
00:33:15.552 --> 00:33:17.352
I used to love the law.

502
00:33:17.392 --> 00:33:24.455
I saw it in the greatest in the Supreme Court, the courts of appeals, and trial law.

503
00:33:24.855 --> 00:33:26.936
And I loved it, and then I didn't love it as much.

504
00:33:27.697 --> 00:33:29.958
What gave you the courage to reinvent yourself?

505
00:33:30.738 --> 00:33:35.120
I think it's intrinsic in me.

506
00:33:35.140 --> 00:33:42.123
I think there's a Jewish term, and I don't know that many Yiddish terms,

507
00:33:44.552 --> 00:33:46.454
And it's called Spilkus.

508
00:33:47.315 --> 00:33:48.135
I don't know this one.

509
00:33:48.315 --> 00:33:49.396
But I barely know it.

510
00:33:49.416 --> 00:33:51.658
But it's basically, it's nervous energy.

511
00:33:51.718 --> 00:33:55.161
It's like, you know, I just had to do it.

512
00:33:55.862 --> 00:33:56.943
I guess I'll have.

513
00:33:57.043 --> 00:34:02.467
Sometimes there's just things that I focus on and I just have to do it.

514
00:34:02.587 --> 00:34:04.189
I have to bring it to completion.

515
00:34:04.209 --> 00:34:04.569
Yeah.

516
00:34:04.989 --> 00:34:11.732
I just want people who are listening to understand that it's never too late to reinvent yourself.

517
00:34:11.953 --> 00:34:19.096
I think that the sad thing is when somebody who is 40 or 45 or 50 and they have, what is the term?

518
00:34:19.476 --> 00:34:19.856
Focus.

519
00:34:20.076 --> 00:34:21.477
But then they don't do anything with it.

520
00:34:21.897 --> 00:34:28.521
And then they wake up one day and they're 70, 80, and there's so much resentment because they haven't taken that step.

521
00:34:28.541 --> 00:34:29.821
They never took that step.

522
00:34:32.203 --> 00:34:41.051
What would be your, just one last, one last sort of bit of wisdom about this particular topic of reinvention, because it is key to your story.

523
00:34:41.071 --> 00:34:43.113
Like you did a hard 180 in your life.

524
00:34:44.334 --> 00:34:54.284
What is your, your advice to somebody who is in the same spot you were in when you were 40, like 40 year old Rick is trying to figure out how to navigate life.

525
00:34:54.484 --> 00:34:55.665
What would you tell that person?

526
00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:59.202
Well, I've had ups and downs since then, too.

527
00:34:59.382 --> 00:35:11.050
And so what I've come to conclude is that so many people stay in something that makes them unhappy because they're obviously afraid to take that risk.

528
00:35:11.650 --> 00:35:15.133
My view is that if you have health...

529
00:35:16.348 --> 00:35:18.411
You can basically recover from anything.

530
00:35:18.751 --> 00:35:19.772
You pick yourself up.

531
00:35:20.213 --> 00:35:23.277
So I knew in the back, I never really dealt with a plan B.

532
00:35:24.318 --> 00:35:30.967
But I had enough confidence in myself that if we failed, which is circling a possibility, right?

533
00:35:31.167 --> 00:35:33.430
It wasn't about the way that I went into it.

534
00:35:33.790 --> 00:35:34.711
Oh, we're not going to fail.

535
00:35:35.937 --> 00:35:37.298
You always know you could.

536
00:35:37.818 --> 00:35:38.839
Of course you do, right?

537
00:35:39.239 --> 00:35:44.802
But I felt that worst case, I could still pick myself up and figure out what to do.

538
00:35:45.803 --> 00:35:51.326
So it's just about trusting yourself to figure it out, basically, at the end of the day, even if it doesn't work.

539
00:35:51.666 --> 00:35:54.068
Yeah, you have to recognize that.

540
00:35:54.088 --> 00:35:57.950
You do have to recognize, well, here, what I've come to also realize is,

541
00:35:59.510 --> 00:36:03.091
Many people, if we went in, we would have said, we probably did.

542
00:36:03.792 --> 00:36:04.912
Failure is not an option.

543
00:36:04.932 --> 00:36:06.292
Okay.

544
00:36:06.493 --> 00:36:07.933
Everybody says that, right?

545
00:36:08.353 --> 00:36:09.374
Failure is an option.

546
00:36:10.434 --> 00:36:11.674
It's absolutely an option.

547
00:36:12.195 --> 00:36:14.976
And if anything should have ever driven that home, it was COVID.

548
00:36:16.296 --> 00:36:20.037
Because I had a business that failed during COVID, right?

549
00:36:20.298 --> 00:36:22.058
And a successful business.

550
00:36:22.438 --> 00:36:23.859
COVID caused it to fail.

551
00:36:23.959 --> 00:36:26.560
A reaction to COVID caused it to fail.

552
00:36:27.381 --> 00:36:32.631
So failure is an option, but you still pick yourself up and you go on with your life.

553
00:36:33.658 --> 00:36:36.160
Life at the Speed of Play is a success story partner.

554
00:36:36.200 --> 00:36:39.142
Now, this is a book by Mark Pincus, the guy who founded Zynga.

555
00:36:39.182 --> 00:36:40.343
I've actually had him on the show.

556
00:36:40.643 --> 00:36:46.427
I met him in person and Reid Hoffman wrote the foreword, calling him one of the best idea people in Silicon Valley.

557
00:36:46.627 --> 00:36:50.290
The book is Life at the Speed of Play, Launch Products People Love.

558
00:36:50.350 --> 00:36:51.771
About 170 pages.

559
00:36:52.051 --> 00:36:53.552
It's already a national bestseller.

560
00:36:53.832 --> 00:37:00.037
It's his framework for figuring out whether an idea is actually worth going after before you put serious time and money into it.

561
00:37:00.217 --> 00:37:01.718
not theory, the way he actually does it.

562
00:37:01.798 --> 00:37:03.839
And he's repeatedly built successful businesses.

563
00:37:04.119 --> 00:37:05.880
On top of that, you can read it in a weekend.

564
00:37:06.060 --> 00:37:09.122
It can change your entire life and give you the right direction if you're an entrepreneur.

565
00:37:09.142 --> 00:37:15.805
So right now, if you go to getmarksbook.com slash success, you get two copies for $32, that's $16 each.

566
00:37:16.166 --> 00:37:22.509
Mark is paying for the second copy himself because he wants you to give it to somebody, a friend who's been sitting on an idea, someone who needs to push, whoever.

567
00:37:22.769 --> 00:37:25.390
That's getmarksbook.com slash success.

568
00:37:25.771 --> 00:37:28.292
Mark with a K, buy one, second one's free.

569
00:37:28.492 --> 00:37:30.294
MyFitnessPal is a success story partner.

570
00:37:30.475 --> 00:37:31.155
Now, a quick story.

571
00:37:31.175 --> 00:37:33.759
A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of a very heavy recording week.

572
00:37:33.979 --> 00:37:36.061
So five episodes back to back.

573
00:37:36.362 --> 00:37:37.703
By Wednesday, I could feel it.

574
00:37:37.783 --> 00:37:38.745
I felt tired.

575
00:37:38.925 --> 00:37:44.792
And I pulled up my food log in the MyFitnessPal app, and I could see why I felt tired.

576
00:37:44.992 --> 00:37:46.754
I was heavily under eating.

577
00:37:47.315 --> 00:37:48.736
I was not keeping up with my meals.

578
00:37:49.016 --> 00:37:50.477
My macros were all off.

579
00:37:50.817 --> 00:37:58.561
On weeks like that, staying on top of your fuel and your food and what you eat is the difference between being sharp on episode five and being flat.

580
00:37:58.721 --> 00:38:01.543
And that's the kind of thing you only catch when you're paying attention.

581
00:38:01.723 --> 00:38:05.765
And that's why I keep logging every single meal I eat in the MyFitnessPal app.

582
00:38:05.805 --> 00:38:07.546
It's not because I'm obsessing over numbers.

583
00:38:07.886 --> 00:38:09.347
It's not because I'm trying to diet.

584
00:38:09.727 --> 00:38:13.349
Because I'm trying to have an awareness about what I eat in the day.

585
00:38:13.569 --> 00:38:16.512
And the app makes it so easy to maintain that awareness.

586
00:38:16.592 --> 00:38:19.335
I can point my camera at a plate with meal scan.

587
00:38:19.675 --> 00:38:23.819
It'll tell me exactly what I'm eating, all my macronutrients, proteins, fats, carbs.

588
00:38:24.020 --> 00:38:25.641
There's an intermittent fasting tracker.

589
00:38:26.082 --> 00:38:29.125
If I want an intermittent fast, it keeps my eating window honest.

590
00:38:29.425 --> 00:38:32.028
And it all syncs with my watch and all of my fitness apps.

591
00:38:32.308 --> 00:38:33.910
And it just runs in the background.

592
00:38:34.230 --> 00:38:37.733
See, food is a foundation for energy, sleep, recovery, performance.

593
00:38:38.014 --> 00:38:40.796
It is the one input that you cannot skip.

594
00:38:41.016 --> 00:38:43.479
So do yourself a favor, track what you're eating.

595
00:38:43.839 --> 00:38:47.222
It'll make you feel better, perform better in everything that you do.

596
00:38:47.262 --> 00:38:53.828
Go to podcasts.myfitnesspal.com and use code SCOTT, all uppercase for 50% off MyFitnessPal premium.

597
00:38:54.108 --> 00:38:57.291
That's podcasts.myfitnesspal.com, code SCOTT.

598
00:38:58.112 --> 00:39:06.037
Have you heard Tim Ferriss has a term, which I think is very powerful, called fear setting.

599
00:39:06.617 --> 00:39:16.163
And what it means is when you start something that scares you, you think about the worst possible outcome, but you articulate it.

600
00:39:16.203 --> 00:39:20.105
So you don't just think, oh, if this fails, I'm going to have no money, I'm going to go homeless.

601
00:39:20.145 --> 00:39:23.167
You literally say, okay, if this fails,

602
00:39:24.122 --> 00:39:26.484
What is more or less than likely going to happen?

603
00:39:26.504 --> 00:39:29.967
Is it going to be, you know, I'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage.

604
00:39:30.027 --> 00:39:31.488
The bank's going to take my home.

605
00:39:31.948 --> 00:39:33.189
I'm going to be on the street.

606
00:39:33.669 --> 00:39:37.973
You know, I'm going to end up in jail because I'm destitute and I steal a loaf of bread.

607
00:39:38.053 --> 00:39:40.535
No, that is most likely not going to happen.

608
00:39:41.095 --> 00:39:47.340
So a lot of the fear about doing something or taking action or taking a risk, it's illogical.

609
00:39:47.780 --> 00:39:52.764
The fear doesn't actually make sense because kind of like the exercise you did with CPK,

610
00:39:54.265 --> 00:39:57.727
If I start it and it fails, I'm going to be fine.

611
00:39:58.208 --> 00:40:02.010
Like, I'm not going to, you know, not be able to afford a meal.

612
00:40:02.130 --> 00:40:02.850
I'll figure it out.

613
00:40:03.171 --> 00:40:05.232
I think you really make a great point there.

614
00:40:05.332 --> 00:40:08.914
I think it's useful to the audience, right?

615
00:40:09.274 --> 00:40:09.955
Exactly that.

616
00:40:10.195 --> 00:40:12.216
It doesn't mean you're going onto the street.

617
00:40:12.776 --> 00:40:13.877
You can get a job.

618
00:40:13.897 --> 00:40:14.897
I mean, right?

619
00:40:15.258 --> 00:40:20.241
You can figure it out and you might have another shot at your dream, right?

620
00:40:20.381 --> 00:40:21.842
And you just keep poking at it.

621
00:40:22.622 --> 00:40:23.263
Right.

622
00:40:23.383 --> 00:40:24.243
And get on with it.

623
00:40:24.684 --> 00:40:26.985
So CPK is growing.

624
00:40:27.306 --> 00:40:33.130
By the way, I didn't even I didn't know if it was like a bad thing to use the acronym CPK.

625
00:40:33.150 --> 00:40:35.372
That's why I kept saying California Pizza Kitchen.

626
00:40:35.392 --> 00:40:39.995
I'm like, I don't want to like I don't want to tell the founder like I don't want to like shorten the name of the company.

627
00:40:40.415 --> 00:40:41.996
So everybody just says CPK?

628
00:40:42.137 --> 00:40:43.838
We had CPK on the logo.

629
00:40:44.298 --> 00:40:46.620
Ah, so I didn't know if that was like a loud...

630
00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:50.803
The way we thought about it is California Pizza Kitchen is a little bit of a mouthful.

631
00:40:51.784 --> 00:40:53.585
So we put CPK in there.

632
00:40:54.045 --> 00:40:55.286
You know, it was very funny.

633
00:40:55.927 --> 00:40:59.149
I was on the board of directors of Callaway Golf for 23 years.

634
00:41:00.710 --> 00:41:06.116
And one time I'm sitting with the Swedish pro and his wife at dinner, Nicholas Fass.

635
00:41:06.636 --> 00:41:08.058
And he asked me what I did.

636
00:41:08.078 --> 00:41:14.003
And I said, well, I'm a co-founder of a restaurant chain.

637
00:41:14.684 --> 00:41:17.267
And maybe because Larry wasn't there, maybe I've said founder.

638
00:41:17.907 --> 00:41:18.148
Yeah.

639
00:41:18.728 --> 00:41:19.890
But I said, I'm a co-founder.

640
00:41:20.110 --> 00:41:21.032
He said, what's it called?

641
00:41:21.052 --> 00:41:22.754
And I said, California Pizza Kitchen.

642
00:41:23.095 --> 00:41:24.376
He said, oh, that's interesting.

643
00:41:24.817 --> 00:41:25.658
What kind of things?

644
00:41:25.738 --> 00:41:27.741
I said, well, we do our barbecue chicken piece.

645
00:41:28.262 --> 00:41:31.006
And he looked, he and his wife go, do you mean CPK?

646
00:41:31.767 --> 00:41:33.650
You mean it's called California Pizza Kitchen?

647
00:41:34.511 --> 00:41:36.332
So people just use the acronym.

648
00:41:36.372 --> 00:41:36.593
Right.

649
00:41:36.633 --> 00:41:38.794
They didn't know it was called California Pizza Kitchen.

650
00:41:39.074 --> 00:41:40.095
Where did the name even come?

651
00:41:40.195 --> 00:41:41.516
I mean, it was such an obvious name.

652
00:41:41.556 --> 00:41:42.297
It's California.

653
00:41:42.377 --> 00:41:43.217
It's Pizza at the Kitchen.

654
00:41:43.237 --> 00:41:46.500
That was like, that's the amount of thought that went into the name.

655
00:41:46.860 --> 00:41:48.921
It seems so obvious now, right?

656
00:41:49.202 --> 00:41:49.562
Okay.

657
00:41:50.102 --> 00:41:54.125
But at the time we named it, there was no barbecue chicken pizza.

658
00:41:54.165 --> 00:41:55.146
There was no menu.

659
00:41:55.886 --> 00:42:03.352
The style, California style pizza existed, as I mentioned, at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and Spalago.

660
00:42:03.372 --> 00:42:03.532
Yeah.

661
00:42:04.433 --> 00:42:05.819
But we didn't have the chef.

662
00:42:05.839 --> 00:42:06.582
We didn't have a menu.

663
00:42:06.983 --> 00:42:08.208
We're trying to come up with a name.

664
00:42:09.715 --> 00:42:16.058
We had some Italian names like Ciao and Primavera and a combination of our names, etc.

665
00:42:16.958 --> 00:42:22.021
One day, Larry calls me and said, I want to have breakfast.

666
00:42:22.061 --> 00:42:26.763
I'll meet you at Nate Nell's at the famous, iconic deli in Beverly Hills.

667
00:42:27.063 --> 00:42:31.725
Other than when we were in trial, all the years together, we never had breakfast.

668
00:42:32.085 --> 00:42:34.807
He got himself all excited.

669
00:42:35.647 --> 00:42:37.031
So we go to meet him for breakfast.

670
00:42:37.072 --> 00:42:37.653
He said, I got it.

671
00:42:37.693 --> 00:42:38.456
I got the name.

672
00:42:38.736 --> 00:42:39.599
I said, what's that?

673
00:42:40.201 --> 00:42:42.367
He said, California Pizza Kitchen.

674
00:42:42.809 --> 00:42:43.170
And I said,

675
00:42:44.430 --> 00:42:50.196
God, Larry, I'm not going to open a restaurant in Beverly Hills and call a California pizza kitchen.

676
00:42:50.216 --> 00:42:54.680
It's way too pedestrian.

677
00:42:55.120 --> 00:42:56.922
And he pouts.

678
00:42:57.202 --> 00:43:04.229
We had this very pouts and angry and, okay, I don't care.

679
00:43:04.249 --> 00:43:05.110
Call whatever you want.

680
00:43:05.851 --> 00:43:06.952
He said, but he said...

681
00:43:07.492 --> 00:43:09.694
But this is his retort.

682
00:43:09.854 --> 00:43:10.855
He's a trial lawyer, right?

683
00:43:10.875 --> 00:43:12.797
And he said, but I'll tell you this.

684
00:43:12.877 --> 00:43:25.547
You call it anything you want, but if somebody, if we do chow or we do primavera, and then somebody opens down the block with a restaurant that does the same thing and they call it California Pizza Kitchen, you're going to be sick.

685
00:43:26.068 --> 00:43:26.909
Yes, yes.

686
00:43:27.049 --> 00:43:27.289
Okay?

687
00:43:27.629 --> 00:43:30.512
And when he said it, I had this pit in my stomach, right?

688
00:43:30.532 --> 00:43:31.032
Okay.

689
00:43:31.212 --> 00:43:32.473
And I said, you're right, it's over.

690
00:43:32.693 --> 00:43:33.333
That's it.

691
00:43:33.433 --> 00:43:33.853
You're done.

692
00:43:34.093 --> 00:43:34.474
I agree.

693
00:43:34.494 --> 00:43:38.996
OK. And that night, we were with a couple from Providence, Rhode Island.

694
00:43:39.696 --> 00:43:41.217
And we floated these names.

695
00:43:41.237 --> 00:43:42.277
So which one would you go to?

696
00:43:42.297 --> 00:43:47.600
So well, you open a Chow or Primavera, just another Italian restaurant in Providence.

697
00:43:48.240 --> 00:43:54.144
But if you open a California pizza kitchen, we'd go to see that because we want to see what you fruits and nuts are up to.

698
00:43:54.745 --> 00:43:56.266
And that was our market research.

699
00:43:56.586 --> 00:44:01.369
So Larry would have taken this very personally if you didn't take his suggestion on the name.

700
00:44:01.490 --> 00:44:02.450
Oh, absolutely.

701
00:44:02.670 --> 00:44:04.091
He cares about this stuff a lot.

702
00:44:04.111 --> 00:44:05.412
He really cares about it.

703
00:44:05.432 --> 00:44:07.354
He absolutely cares about being the namer.

704
00:44:07.782 --> 00:44:11.466
What was the time span between when it started, when it started growing?

705
00:44:11.827 --> 00:44:21.758
And then I guess the first real transaction was when Pepsi paid $100 million for 67% in 92, correct?

706
00:44:22.238 --> 00:44:23.560
Before that, it was privately owned.

707
00:44:24.425 --> 00:44:25.506
Well, you had some investors.

708
00:44:25.606 --> 00:44:27.288
We had 22 original investors.

709
00:44:27.328 --> 00:44:28.789
We called, well, here it was.

710
00:44:28.829 --> 00:44:31.351
We thought we could build this thing originally.

711
00:44:31.371 --> 00:44:33.212
That's how naive we were.

712
00:44:33.693 --> 00:44:35.654
We thought a quarter of a million dollars.

713
00:44:35.835 --> 00:44:37.296
We brought a contractor in.

714
00:44:37.316 --> 00:44:38.937
He said, what's it going to cost to build this?

715
00:44:38.957 --> 00:44:40.478
A quarter of a million dollars.

716
00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:43.421
Okay, so we borrowed a quarter of a million dollars.

717
00:44:43.461 --> 00:44:46.784
Well, he didn't mention that they didn't include kitchen equipment.

718
00:44:47.604 --> 00:44:53.251
Or, of course, all the other soft costs that are involved in training and computer systems.

719
00:44:53.351 --> 00:44:57.537
Anyway, we ended up going to friends for another quarter of a million dollars.

720
00:44:58.257 --> 00:44:59.018
22 friends.

721
00:44:59.058 --> 00:45:01.962
We made 23 phone calls in an afternoon.

722
00:45:02.363 --> 00:45:02.963
We got 22 yeses.

723
00:45:04.465 --> 00:45:05.266
So these were good friends.

724
00:45:05.386 --> 00:45:07.988
Well, yeah, good friends and people invested.

725
00:45:08.208 --> 00:45:09.989
You know, it turned out really great.

726
00:45:10.049 --> 00:45:15.093
Anyway, then we, again, we knew we were building restaurants, not a restaurant.

727
00:45:15.734 --> 00:45:20.497
And then we, each time we needed more money as we built more.

728
00:45:20.537 --> 00:45:25.541
So the second one, the first one opened in March of 85.

729
00:45:25.621 --> 00:45:29.764
Second one opened in December, I'm sorry, June of 86.

730
00:45:30.085 --> 00:45:31.005
Third in December.

731
00:45:31.766 --> 00:45:32.246
And so...

732
00:45:33.527 --> 00:45:38.119
Within the first seven years, we built 25 restaurants, like in seven states.

733
00:45:38.981 --> 00:45:41.467
And we were about, oh, and each time we needed money,

734
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:44.381
We just wrote a letter to our investors.

735
00:45:44.882 --> 00:45:47.403
We said, here, now we're raising a million.

736
00:45:47.463 --> 00:45:49.485
Now we're raising 1.2 million.

737
00:45:49.965 --> 00:45:51.026
And here's the new price.

738
00:45:51.226 --> 00:45:54.488
And we kept raising the price of the stock and like throwing darts.

739
00:45:55.409 --> 00:45:57.670
Some people would say, oh, my God, where do you come up with that price?

740
00:45:57.690 --> 00:45:59.151
We'd say, well, we're throwing darts.

741
00:46:00.552 --> 00:46:08.037
And so now we have 300 investors in seven years, all extended dollars.

742
00:46:08.137 --> 00:46:09.417
Friends and family, right?

743
00:46:09.957 --> 00:46:10.778
I brought my uncle.

744
00:46:10.798 --> 00:46:13.738
I mean, somebody brings their uncle in, they bring their friend in.

745
00:46:14.519 --> 00:46:22.680
Literally, in the community, in LA's community, we had 300 investors now, the largest of whom was Steve Wynn.

746
00:46:23.321 --> 00:46:23.601
Okay.

747
00:46:24.001 --> 00:46:29.762
Steve Wynn became our largest investor with our second restaurant before he built the Mirage.

748
00:46:30.162 --> 00:46:32.003
This is very important to our growth, too.

749
00:46:32.543 --> 00:46:37.604
So, Steve, before we opened the second restaurant, Steve invested a quarter of a million dollars.

750
00:46:38.604 --> 00:46:47.130
And then two years later, he said, I'm building this new hotel and this great resort, and can I be a franchisee?

751
00:46:47.230 --> 00:46:48.611
Well, we didn't want a franchise.

752
00:46:49.532 --> 00:46:52.033
But Steve Wynn, yeah, he could be a franchisee.

753
00:46:52.694 --> 00:47:00.759
So he opened the CPK in the Mirage in 1989, which was an unbelievable billboard for us.

754
00:47:01.780 --> 00:47:03.722
And then so it was seven years.

755
00:47:03.742 --> 00:47:08.847
And in the entire 41 years at CPK, there's only been three people.

756
00:47:09.948 --> 00:47:16.755
One, the original one, Gary Beauregard, who was that person in the back of the house when we got rid of the chef.

757
00:47:17.296 --> 00:47:19.138
And he ran it for, I think, 12 years.

758
00:47:20.977 --> 00:47:34.127
Brian Sullivan, who started as an assistant manager and stayed with CPK for over 30 years, and then became, after Gary became our head, we worked with him forever.

759
00:47:34.247 --> 00:47:37.269
And now Paul Sibilsky, who's been there at...

760
00:47:38.090 --> 00:47:40.132
18 years and still there.

761
00:47:40.652 --> 00:47:45.756
So the food quality always maintained the same.

762
00:47:46.497 --> 00:47:47.017
I like that.

763
00:47:47.438 --> 00:47:53.402
So Larry is the neighbor after California Pizza Kitchen.

764
00:47:53.422 --> 00:47:58.947
So when Steve Wynn built the Mirage,

765
00:48:02.229 --> 00:48:08.733
One day we get a call from his assistant, Joyce, and she said, are you guys going to be in town tomorrow?

766
00:48:10.274 --> 00:48:10.874
And I said, yeah.

767
00:48:10.894 --> 00:48:12.816
And he said, well, Steve would like to come in and see you.

768
00:48:14.977 --> 00:48:15.818
So yeah, we're fine.

769
00:48:15.898 --> 00:48:16.658
Love to see Steve.

770
00:48:16.718 --> 00:48:17.959
So he comes in our office.

771
00:48:19.060 --> 00:48:23.542
I said, you know, I have this property on the north side of the Mirage.

772
00:48:24.363 --> 00:48:30.607
He said, I want to build a resort that's a family resort to compete with Circus Circus.

773
00:48:30.627 --> 00:48:30.787
Circus.

774
00:48:32.095 --> 00:48:36.657
not high-end like the Mirage, and I can't come up with a theme, a name.

775
00:48:37.117 --> 00:48:38.538
And you guys are creative guys.

776
00:48:38.558 --> 00:48:39.338
You've got to help me.

777
00:48:40.979 --> 00:48:42.419
So I think about it overnight.

778
00:48:42.559 --> 00:48:44.180
I don't come up with anything that great.

779
00:48:44.660 --> 00:48:44.880
Cut.

780
00:48:46.241 --> 00:48:51.483
When Larry's leaving town next and he calls me, he said, oh, call Steve when you get a chance.

781
00:48:51.523 --> 00:48:54.444
I don't have a chance, but give him a call because I named the hotel.

782
00:48:54.464 --> 00:48:56.665
I said, what's that?

783
00:48:56.685 --> 00:48:57.766
He said, Treasure Island.

784
00:48:58.266 --> 00:48:58.566
Really?

785
00:48:59.831 --> 00:49:00.631
That's so funny.

786
00:49:00.812 --> 00:49:01.712
I said, that's great.

787
00:49:01.732 --> 00:49:02.553
So I called Joyce.

788
00:49:02.653 --> 00:49:04.774
I said, is Steve there?

789
00:49:05.034 --> 00:49:07.455
She said, no, he's on the plane on the way to Australia.

790
00:49:09.036 --> 00:49:12.498
So I said, when he gets a chance, have him call me because he's very named the hotel.

791
00:49:13.459 --> 00:49:16.601
So about five minutes go by and get a call.

792
00:49:16.681 --> 00:49:19.042
Ricky, Ricky, from the plane.

793
00:49:19.102 --> 00:49:20.243
Steve's calling me from the plane.

794
00:49:20.883 --> 00:49:22.724
Ricky, I heard where he named the hotel.

795
00:49:22.964 --> 00:49:23.405
What is it?

796
00:49:24.365 --> 00:49:25.446
I said, Treasure Island.

797
00:49:25.986 --> 00:49:27.207
He said, that's it.

798
00:49:28.287 --> 00:49:28.868
Give him a kiss.

799
00:49:28.908 --> 00:49:29.088
Goodbye.

800
00:49:29.108 --> 00:49:29.268
Goodbye.

801
00:49:30.307 --> 00:49:38.849
And now, two days later or whatever, two days later, Steve gets off the plane at the tarmac.

802
00:49:38.889 --> 00:49:40.109
He's got a press conference.

803
00:49:40.429 --> 00:49:42.570
He gets off the plane wearing a pirate costume.

804
00:49:43.570 --> 00:49:45.591
Okay.

805
00:49:45.991 --> 00:49:50.452
And they asked, and CNN asked, where'd you come up with this idea?

806
00:49:50.472 --> 00:49:55.393
And he said, I didn't, but a friend of mine who's chairman of California Pizza Kitchen did.

807
00:49:56.402 --> 00:50:07.334
Okay, now about Steve's 50th birthday of like two or three weeks or a month later in Vegas for Steve's birthday, his 50th birthday.

808
00:50:09.014 --> 00:50:14.920
And he takes us into this room, and here's this complete mock-up of that pirate ship battle.

809
00:50:15.241 --> 00:50:19.245
And he had this million-dollar mock-up with a battle going on.

810
00:50:20.386 --> 00:50:22.328
And he looks, he says, what do you think?

811
00:50:22.408 --> 00:50:24.930
And my partner says, just as I envisioned it.

812
00:50:25.211 --> 00:50:27.693
So at one point, PepsiCo,

813
00:50:28.754 --> 00:50:30.836
was bullying you about this deal.

814
00:50:31.677 --> 00:50:39.463
And I just think it's funny because when I was reading the book, you speak about in the prequel dealing with actual mobsters.

815
00:50:39.864 --> 00:50:44.207
So I feel like corporate mobsters are not that scary when you've dealt with actual mobsters.

816
00:50:44.948 --> 00:50:50.673
We actually have the registration statement drawn and along came PepsiCo.

817
00:50:51.769 --> 00:50:55.252
And PepsiCo at that time owned Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut.

818
00:50:55.692 --> 00:50:56.873
And this was Yum brand, I think.

819
00:50:56.893 --> 00:50:57.974
Yeah, it became Yum.

820
00:50:58.454 --> 00:51:02.598
At that time, it was Pepsi restaurants, PepsiCo restaurants.

821
00:51:03.178 --> 00:51:04.679
And they said, we want to invest in you.

822
00:51:04.699 --> 00:51:08.182
We don't want to buy you guys out, but we want to invest in you.

823
00:51:08.242 --> 00:51:15.048
You're what we think is the best casual dining chain in America, and we would like to own it and own part of it.

824
00:51:15.808 --> 00:51:18.091
And that was a big deal.

825
00:51:18.131 --> 00:51:20.894
Well, zero to seven years going public is fast.

826
00:51:21.575 --> 00:51:22.896
That seems very fast.

827
00:51:23.176 --> 00:51:29.884
It was pretty fast, but we were trying to make a lot of noise for little guys is the way we thought about it.

828
00:51:30.164 --> 00:51:35.770
Now, when you think about, so you have these investors, you have Steve Wynn who's opening a franchise.

829
00:51:35.790 --> 00:51:37.112
Things are going very, very well.

830
00:51:39.393 --> 00:51:45.978
Is there a reason why you're at this point deciding we want to go maybe public, we want to take on investment?

831
00:51:46.378 --> 00:51:51.502
Because then either of those options, public comes with headache and some dilution as well.

832
00:51:51.622 --> 00:51:53.003
Same with taking on investors.

833
00:51:53.423 --> 00:51:59.748
You never thought for a moment, why don't we just maintain this trajectory and then we can... We wanted liquidity.

834
00:52:00.168 --> 00:52:01.790
You wanted liquidity.

835
00:52:01.910 --> 00:52:06.233
Our investors... We had no squeaky wheels in it.

836
00:52:06.653 --> 00:52:09.254
Maybe the wheels, starting to squeak.

837
00:52:09.294 --> 00:52:10.895
Maybe somebody started to squeak.

838
00:52:11.155 --> 00:52:14.096
You know, seven years, you guys aren't making any money.

839
00:52:14.496 --> 00:52:15.956
You know, we haven't made any money.

840
00:52:15.976 --> 00:52:16.076
Okay.

841
00:52:17.037 --> 00:52:19.618
We were looking for a liquidity event.

842
00:52:20.138 --> 00:52:25.139
And that was, and then, so Pepsi wasn't just offering to invest a little bit.

843
00:52:25.199 --> 00:52:26.160
They wanted majority.

844
00:52:26.720 --> 00:52:26.960
Right.

845
00:52:27.900 --> 00:52:31.622
And then you've said before this blank check.

846
00:52:32.002 --> 00:52:34.763
So Pepsi came to us and said, you have a blank check.

847
00:52:35.503 --> 00:52:36.223
What does that mean?

848
00:52:36.683 --> 00:52:37.903
What did you do with this?

849
00:52:37.983 --> 00:52:50.906
So the way we, it was, this is public information, but it's just how it unraveled, right?

850
00:52:50.986 --> 00:52:55.887
So we wanted liquidity for ourselves and our investors.

851
00:52:56.467 --> 00:53:03.328
And at that point, we had a target of saying we wanted $10 million in the bank each ourselves, right?

852
00:53:04.618 --> 00:53:13.445
And Pepsi backdoored into a price that could justify how they could give us a certain amount of money.

853
00:53:13.485 --> 00:53:21.452
So the price stemmed from how do we get Larry and Rick $10 million each after tax payments.

854
00:53:21.992 --> 00:53:23.273
And that became the price.

855
00:53:23.313 --> 00:53:26.516
So they bought the company at a value of $140 million.

856
00:53:28.217 --> 00:53:32.303
for the full company, and then we ended up dividending the money.

857
00:53:32.844 --> 00:53:43.200
And then the great news was that we then gave the money to our investors, and those original investors, anybody who had put in money, made 22 times their money.

858
00:53:43.460 --> 00:53:43.881
That's good.

859
00:53:44.181 --> 00:53:45.502
Yeah, we had a lot of friends.

860
00:53:45.802 --> 00:53:46.663
Yeah, they were happy.

861
00:53:47.143 --> 00:53:48.104
Oh, so the blank check.

862
00:53:48.124 --> 00:53:50.445
You asked me about the blank check, the Pepsi.

863
00:53:50.465 --> 00:54:00.872
So now Pepsi's in, and in order, the way they did the math, in order for them to justify the price, we needed to open 15 restaurants the first year.

864
00:54:00.892 --> 00:54:02.594
This is on a base of 25.

865
00:54:02.674 --> 00:54:05.155
Okay, now open 15, and then 28 every year later.

866
00:54:05.175 --> 00:54:05.936
Okay.

867
00:54:09.238 --> 00:54:10.399
It's aggressive.

868
00:54:10.539 --> 00:54:11.079
Right.

869
00:54:11.099 --> 00:54:18.242
And then they put on our board John Martin, who was that time CEO and chairman of Taco Bell.

870
00:54:19.042 --> 00:54:20.182
And he called us wimps.

871
00:54:21.023 --> 00:54:24.564
He said, you have unlimited capital from PepsiCo.

872
00:54:24.604 --> 00:54:27.765
Why would you only build 28 restaurants, you wimps?

873
00:54:28.325 --> 00:54:28.526
Okay.

874
00:54:29.006 --> 00:54:30.926
Build 50, 100 a year.

875
00:54:30.966 --> 00:54:31.727
Put them everywhere.

876
00:54:32.467 --> 00:54:34.049
See where they work, see where they don't work.

877
00:54:34.389 --> 00:54:39.235
So I think John, who I realized didn't think about it then, now or now, right?

878
00:54:39.735 --> 00:54:41.958
John was very good with other people's money.

879
00:54:43.459 --> 00:54:47.163
But you still had a ton of restraint about how to spend that money.

880
00:54:47.183 --> 00:54:48.365
Like you didn't want to open...

881
00:54:49.113 --> 00:54:51.094
So explain to me why you didn't take his advice.

882
00:54:51.274 --> 00:54:53.795
Well, no, we sipped the Kool-Aid.

883
00:54:54.115 --> 00:54:56.096
Oh, no, we sipped it.

884
00:54:56.636 --> 00:55:04.080
Oh, yeah, we didn't try to open 50, but we tried to hit the target, which we did, of the 15 the first year and then 28.

885
00:55:04.120 --> 00:55:09.362
But realize, or not, I mean, but in order to open...

886
00:55:10.948 --> 00:55:15.449
15 restaurants, get open 15 or 20, let's say 28, as we did.

887
00:55:16.269 --> 00:55:20.750
You have to be negotiating 90 sites that you think are going to happen.

888
00:55:21.250 --> 00:55:33.052
Because we ultimately got a formula about one out of every three sites that we were working on that we thought would happen, would happen or happen within that time frame.

889
00:55:34.492 --> 00:55:37.293
So you had to build up teams of real estate people

890
00:55:38.772 --> 00:55:41.095
And that's where the carelessness came in.

891
00:55:41.596 --> 00:55:43.878
Then it became sign the deal.

892
00:55:44.719 --> 00:55:46.742
Don't do the homework.

893
00:55:46.802 --> 00:55:49.365
Don't do the demography.

894
00:55:49.806 --> 00:55:52.929
And so throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.

895
00:55:53.190 --> 00:55:55.252
And then all of a sudden, yeah, we got 15 open.

896
00:55:56.754 --> 00:56:01.275
and sign 28, and some of them were coming in so great, doing so great.

897
00:56:01.896 --> 00:56:05.737
And then PepsiCo said, oh, we didn't mean open, don't open.

898
00:56:05.877 --> 00:56:08.338
We didn't mean open unsuccessful restaurants.

899
00:56:08.818 --> 00:56:11.719
So is this actually what led to the PE buyout?

900
00:56:12.219 --> 00:56:12.519
Yes.

901
00:56:13.339 --> 00:56:16.500
Well, what led to the, you following that?

902
00:56:17.681 --> 00:56:18.781
What led to that was?

903
00:56:20.325 --> 00:56:30.308
At around the same time Pepsi pulled the plug, they were developing their internal strategy to get rid of the restaurants, which we did not know.

904
00:56:31.569 --> 00:56:40.432
Now, what we did know, however, was we had a feeling that was going to happen because of the conversations we had.

905
00:56:41.452 --> 00:56:44.073
And we had a deal with PepsiCo.

906
00:56:45.105 --> 00:56:47.406
that they could not sell their interest.

907
00:56:48.067 --> 00:56:49.107
We had a very good lawyer.

908
00:56:49.187 --> 00:56:54.090
It wasn't Larry and I that did, it was our lawyer, Bob Kahn, who's our friend and lawyer forever.

909
00:56:54.511 --> 00:56:56.572
And I give him all the credit for this.

910
00:56:57.172 --> 00:56:58.753
But we had an agreement with PepsiCo.

911
00:56:59.013 --> 00:57:01.495
The reason we were so pleased with this

912
00:57:02.175 --> 00:57:03.256
Okay.

913
00:57:03.296 --> 00:57:13.282
We had, our interest was now behind, well, during the PepsiCo period, was now behind $150 million that Pepsi had loaned the company.

914
00:57:13.542 --> 00:57:14.303
Wait a minute, catch this.

915
00:57:14.663 --> 00:57:15.904
They had loaned the company.

916
00:57:15.964 --> 00:57:18.565
This is 1994, 95.

917
00:57:19.546 --> 00:57:21.127
No current interest payments.

918
00:57:21.947 --> 00:57:23.829
No current payment.

919
00:57:25.169 --> 00:57:30.613
All principal and interest due in 2007 as a balloon payment.

920
00:57:32.216 --> 00:57:33.916
And the interest was at 2%.

921
00:57:34.596 --> 00:57:36.397
That's incredible.

922
00:57:36.477 --> 00:57:36.717
Yeah.

923
00:57:36.757 --> 00:57:48.139
So when we made the deal that we approved, okay, we agreed with the new private equity guys that they could put their own CEO in and we would remain as chairman.

924
00:57:48.679 --> 00:57:51.800
But now we held our interest free of that debt.

925
00:57:53.800 --> 00:57:57.141
So we wiped out all that debt for us and our investors.

926
00:57:57.907 --> 00:57:59.708
That's very impressive.

927
00:57:59.948 --> 00:58:01.790
And so you were very happy with this deal.

928
00:58:01.810 --> 00:58:02.950
Very happy with that deal.

929
00:58:03.171 --> 00:58:03.811
Yeah.

930
00:58:03.871 --> 00:58:12.897
When I was reading a little bit about your story, I mean, CEO and founders getting pushed out is not uncommon, but it's not usually on great terms.

931
00:58:13.177 --> 00:58:17.080
They lose control of their company, not because they've negotiated this great deal.

932
00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:25.247
We, we, we, we see that we seated control and they were happy to have us as chairman, but we didn't have to have control.

933
00:58:25.307 --> 00:58:26.408
They put in a CEO.

934
00:58:27.089 --> 00:58:41.722
Now, I'm just curious, I guess the last sort of part of this story, um, was in 2011 where you sold to the Golden Gate and that was, uh, the $470 million, like five, that's like the last piece of this story.

935
00:58:41.762 --> 00:58:41.962
Right.

936
00:58:42.643 --> 00:58:42.863
Um, yeah.

937
00:58:45.747 --> 00:58:58.451
after they installed the new CEO, so we're talking from, well, we're talking from basically 97 to 2011, so a decent amount of time.

938
00:58:59.071 --> 00:59:04.112
Were you happy with how the company progressed, how the CEO managed?

939
00:59:04.132 --> 00:59:10.774
Because I know sometimes a CEO is not gonna be a founder, for example, so were you happy with the end result?

940
00:59:10.814 --> 00:59:11.474
It changed.

941
00:59:12.095 --> 00:59:13.075
So what happened was,

942
00:59:13.955 --> 00:59:23.757
that the original CEO, we took it public with him in 2000.

943
00:59:23.777 --> 00:59:24.917
Yeah.

944
00:59:25.078 --> 00:59:35.400
And in 2003, he imploded, ended up having to resign, and the board asked us to run the company.

945
00:59:36.220 --> 00:59:38.221
So we ran it as a public arena.

946
00:59:38.302 --> 00:59:45.687
I ran it as CEOs, and now we're back, running it as CEOs from 2003 to 2011.

947
00:59:46.747 --> 00:59:52.351
And in that period, we were very successful up until the recession of...

948
00:59:53.412 --> 00:59:55.413
which was very impactful.

949
00:59:55.573 --> 01:00:05.038
But we grew the company, added lots of restaurants, were very successful as CEOs, and then the Great Recession blew it up.

950
01:00:05.478 --> 01:00:13.902
Then we worked our way back in stock price, not as high as it was pre-recession, but that was the kicker that made us want to sell it.

951
01:00:13.942 --> 01:00:19.144
It was like, whoa, how did our stock just go from 27 to five in, you know?

952
01:00:20.385 --> 01:00:22.887
And that because of our own performance, right?

953
01:00:23.088 --> 01:00:24.749
HubSpot is a success story partner.

954
01:00:24.909 --> 01:00:29.734
Now, every entrepreneur, founder, CEOs listening right now needs to pay attention.

955
01:00:29.754 --> 01:00:30.855
I have a question for you.

956
01:00:31.155 --> 01:00:38.802
When a buyer asks AI for a solution or a product that your business sells, does your business come up?

957
01:00:39.062 --> 01:00:41.904
The answer is that most companies have no idea.

958
01:00:42.224 --> 01:00:56.034
They don't know if their name shows up in any of the AI tools, chat, perplexity, clod, and by the time they find out, they have lost tons of traffic and tons of deals to someone who did show up.

959
01:00:56.414 --> 01:00:57.935
HubSpot AEO.

960
01:00:58.416 --> 01:01:05.701
It helps you show up in those moments with the right answers that your customers and your buyers are looking for when they go type in a question.

961
01:01:05.721 --> 01:01:05.821
Okay.

962
01:01:05.941 --> 01:01:07.122
It's before the first click.

963
01:01:07.162 --> 01:01:09.945
It's before they fill out some form on your website.

964
01:01:10.445 --> 01:01:14.229
That is the moment that HubSpot AEO is built for.

965
01:01:14.609 --> 01:01:20.314
So if you want your company to show up in AI searches when your customer is looking, check out HubSpot.com.

966
01:01:20.654 --> 01:01:24.378
They are the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

967
01:01:24.638 --> 01:01:26.039
NetSuite is a success story partner.

968
01:01:26.259 --> 01:01:27.761
Now you probably know NetSuite already.

969
01:01:27.781 --> 01:01:31.524
It's a software that a ton of companies use to basically manage everything.

970
01:01:31.544 --> 01:01:35.227
Their finances, their inventory, their HR, it's just all in one place.

971
01:01:35.447 --> 01:01:37.449
Now they just came out with NetSuite Next.

972
01:01:37.649 --> 01:01:40.351
This is the AI version of all of that.

973
01:01:40.371 --> 01:01:44.995
So now you can ask it a question the way you'd ask someone on your team who just knows everything about your business.

974
01:01:45.315 --> 01:01:46.196
It gives you the answer.

975
01:01:46.476 --> 01:01:52.200
It keeps you up to date on all the things you need to know about your company and your business without you having to go digging for them.

976
01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:58.063
And it has these AI agents that take care of all the routine work in your business that eats up everybody's day.

977
01:01:58.343 --> 01:02:03.166
Now, the bigger picture here is that AI is starting to change how teams actually work together.

978
01:02:03.467 --> 01:02:07.229
It's happening incredibly fast, and most companies don't have a plan for it.

979
01:02:07.489 --> 01:02:08.150
NetSuite does.

980
01:02:08.430 --> 01:02:12.052
They have a free guide called Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is starting to change how teams actually work together.

981
01:02:12.152 --> 01:02:13.912
AI is changing everyday work.

982
01:02:14.052 --> 01:02:19.074
It breaks down how AI could reshape the way your whole organization works and what your business should be doing to get ahead of it.

983
01:02:19.274 --> 01:02:21.994
If I needed a tool like NetSuite, it's what I'd use and you should too.

984
01:02:22.254 --> 01:02:31.216
So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is changing everyday work at netsuite.com slash Scott Clary.

985
01:02:31.497 --> 01:02:35.197
The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash Scott Clary.

986
01:02:35.457 --> 01:02:37.878
That's netsuite.com slash Scott Clary.

987
01:02:37.978 --> 01:02:39.279
Monarch is a success story partner.

988
01:02:39.379 --> 01:02:40.099
Now, quick question.

989
01:02:40.239 --> 01:02:42.200
Do you know where your money went last month?

990
01:02:42.300 --> 01:02:44.040
Not roughly, but exactly.

991
01:02:44.140 --> 01:02:44.841
And most people don't.

992
01:02:45.061 --> 01:02:46.001
And I didn't for years.

993
01:02:46.061 --> 01:02:48.182
And that is most of our money stories, right?

994
01:02:48.262 --> 01:02:52.003
When we first start our career, we have one income and one account, and you can kind of wing it.

995
01:02:52.224 --> 01:03:00.127
But once you're running businesses, once you're investing, once you're carrying 50 different subscriptions that you stop paying attention to, winging it gets super expensive.

996
01:03:00.327 --> 01:03:01.347
Monarch fixed that for me.

997
01:03:01.427 --> 01:03:03.408
It is the personal finance app that tracks

998
01:03:03.748 --> 01:03:04.168
everything.

999
01:03:04.228 --> 01:03:08.292
So that means accounts, investments, savings goals, spending all on one screen.

1000
01:03:08.412 --> 01:03:12.115
The first week I had it, it flied recurring charges I've been paying for months without realizing.

1001
01:03:12.215 --> 01:03:17.939
And every single week, the AI recap tells me if spending spiked, if my net worth moved and what bills are coming.

1002
01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:21.202
And I can just ask it, Hey, can I afford this trip without touching my savings?

1003
01:03:21.262 --> 01:03:24.385
And I can get a real answer based on my actual numbers.

1004
01:03:24.485 --> 01:03:26.646
It is a financial advisor in your pocket.

1005
01:03:26.907 --> 01:03:28.768
It costs less than an hour with a real one.

1006
01:03:28.908 --> 01:03:30.690
So write your own money story with Monarch.

1007
01:03:30.930 --> 01:03:31.010
Use

1008
01:03:31.070 --> 01:03:35.474
code success at monarch.com and get your first year of monarch core half off at just $50.

1009
01:03:35.734 --> 01:03:39.277
That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code success.

1010
01:03:39.497 --> 01:03:52.207
You've lived basically every chapter a founder can live in a company from like right from the get from from basically being a W2 nine to five all the way through to running a publicly traded company.

1011
01:03:54.489 --> 01:03:55.630
That's a wild journey.

1012
01:03:56.091 --> 01:03:57.672
It's a wild journey because

1013
01:03:59.747 --> 01:04:02.270
I don't know too many people that have done all of it.

1014
01:04:03.171 --> 01:04:05.815
I know people that have started companies, but then they hire a CEO.

1015
01:04:05.875 --> 01:04:11.722
I know people that are sort of more hired guns that come in after a company goes public.

1016
01:04:12.043 --> 01:04:15.928
It's very difficult because it's more of like...

1017
01:04:17.430 --> 01:04:24.297
It's more you as a human, you have to evolve to be successful at all these different stages.

1018
01:04:24.618 --> 01:04:25.439
It's not easy.

1019
01:04:27.140 --> 01:04:33.947
Like starting a company, like Rick has to be a different person to start a company than he has to be to run a publicly created company.

1020
01:04:33.967 --> 01:04:36.210
It's a different level of stress, different headaches, all of it.

1021
01:04:36.710 --> 01:04:40.854
Well, it was quite something else to be asked to come back to run the company.

1022
01:04:40.914 --> 01:04:41.575
I have no doubt.

1023
01:04:41.935 --> 01:04:42.816
And we did.

1024
01:04:43.517 --> 01:04:49.302
And by the time we sold the company, this last time that we sold it, we had 14,000 employees.

1025
01:04:50.003 --> 01:04:55.107
Out of all the different stages of CPK, which stage taught you the most?

1026
01:04:55.327 --> 01:04:58.250
Starting it, running it with 14,000 employees?

1027
01:04:59.271 --> 01:05:01.293
Every single step.

1028
01:05:02.627 --> 01:05:03.908
Every step changed.

1029
01:05:04.568 --> 01:05:07.150
Just as you say, you had to evolve, right?

1030
01:05:07.390 --> 01:05:08.671
Every step was a challenge.

1031
01:05:08.871 --> 01:05:13.294
So in 2011, you sell to Golden Gate for $470 million.

1032
01:05:16.075 --> 01:05:18.377
What was the hardest part of this entire journey?

1033
01:05:19.878 --> 01:05:22.980
I think the hardest part was after the sale to Golden Gate.

1034
01:05:23.460 --> 01:05:27.863
I've been writing about it and talking about it, and I do in the book, is that

1035
01:05:29.178 --> 01:05:40.310
This process of the sale itself, that once you're a public company and you announce that you're pursuing strategic alternatives.

1036
01:05:40.390 --> 01:05:41.191
So going private.

1037
01:05:41.211 --> 01:05:42.693
Okay, going private.

1038
01:05:42.793 --> 01:05:43.654
You start that process.

1039
01:05:45.891 --> 01:05:49.893
It's a snowball that builds momentum.

1040
01:05:50.754 --> 01:06:00.239
It's not easy to get out of that because you've got lawyers and investment bankers, and they're telling the board, if you don't achieve a price, you're going to get sued.

1041
01:06:00.659 --> 01:06:02.840
If you do achieve the price, you're going to get sued.

1042
01:06:02.860 --> 01:06:03.561
Okay.

1043
01:06:04.901 --> 01:06:08.683
So you finish that transaction.

1044
01:06:08.703 --> 01:06:15.307
Well, we believed, based on representations made to us, that we would remain as chairmen.

1045
01:06:17.163 --> 01:06:20.265
And after the deal closed, that didn't happen.

1046
01:06:22.347 --> 01:06:25.890
And we were completely out, completely out.

1047
01:06:26.410 --> 01:06:28.672
And we weren't emotionally ready for that.

1048
01:06:29.112 --> 01:06:33.255
We thought sale closes, another liquidity event, people are happy.

1049
01:06:33.275 --> 01:06:35.437
Okay, we're remaining as chairman.

1050
01:06:35.457 --> 01:06:36.878
They bring in a new CEO.

1051
01:06:37.539 --> 01:06:40.961
But as it turned out, the new CEO did not want us to be chairman.

1052
01:06:41.382 --> 01:06:44.224
And he negotiated that he was going to be chairman.

1053
01:06:45.713 --> 01:06:51.635
And now all of a sudden we were completely out and completely unready emotionally for it.

1054
01:06:52.636 --> 01:06:55.177
So then, so what was the hardest part?

1055
01:06:55.217 --> 01:07:00.199
Then watching the changes that were made, right?

1056
01:07:00.379 --> 01:07:07.802
The symbols, the tone, how he changed the cell, wanted to remake it in his, they wanted to remake it in a different image.

1057
01:07:08.582 --> 01:07:14.705
And watch longstanding people have to leave the company, voluntarily and otherwise.

1058
01:07:15.913 --> 01:07:18.614
And then ultimately watch it be driven into bankruptcy.

1059
01:07:20.294 --> 01:07:27.236
So that was emotionally, the other stuff I could handle, that was harder.

1060
01:07:28.136 --> 01:07:30.777
Because your identity is so, this is you.

1061
01:07:31.217 --> 01:07:32.077
This business is you.

1062
01:07:32.357 --> 01:07:32.897
Absolutely.

1063
01:07:32.917 --> 01:07:34.938
And my partner the same way, feels the same way.

1064
01:07:35.558 --> 01:07:37.058
How did you not see this coming?

1065
01:07:37.258 --> 01:07:43.820
How did you, because you were so good at negotiating favorably for you in all these other events.

1066
01:07:44.508 --> 01:07:48.073
It's a little tricky from a legal standpoint.

1067
01:07:49.235 --> 01:07:55.042
So we wanted to, we wanted what they call stay in the room and not have a conflict.

1068
01:07:55.543 --> 01:07:59.008
So if you declare, okay, I'm going to go negotiate my contract.

1069
01:08:00.052 --> 01:08:03.535
Okay, then you're raising a conflict.

1070
01:08:03.575 --> 01:08:06.758
You can no longer be in the board, meetings about it.

1071
01:08:06.798 --> 01:08:08.039
So we didn't do that.

1072
01:08:08.480 --> 01:08:13.584
We played by the book, no negotiation, but we had a handshake with the buyers.

1073
01:08:14.385 --> 01:08:15.626
We had a handshake agreement.

1074
01:08:16.888 --> 01:08:22.533
In fact, the buyers had already told our entire staff after the deal closed.

1075
01:08:23.933 --> 01:08:28.977
The buyers actually called everybody together, said, Rick and Larry are going to be chairman, be around forever.

1076
01:08:28.997 --> 01:08:34.682
And then the new CEO was hired, and he said, and he negotiated that he was going to be chairman.

1077
01:08:35.183 --> 01:08:40.327
And they said to us, well, you know, you guys can't really be chairman because we made this other deal now.

1078
01:08:41.468 --> 01:08:45.432
So we did it on trust.

1079
01:08:46.493 --> 01:08:49.836
And the way I pointed out, they didn't do anything illegal.

1080
01:08:50.608 --> 01:08:52.329
Or even immoral.

1081
01:08:52.809 --> 01:08:55.331
You don't feel like it was unethical?

1082
01:08:55.471 --> 01:08:56.191
Well, let's call it.

1083
01:08:56.452 --> 01:09:02.335
I think personally, I think breaking a deal, a handshake, is unethical.

1084
01:09:02.395 --> 01:09:03.156
It's not illegal.

1085
01:09:04.116 --> 01:09:10.340
And the CEO, he never promised us anything.

1086
01:09:10.360 --> 01:09:14.882
Meaning this deal we had with the buyers was before the CEO was hired.

1087
01:09:15.303 --> 01:09:16.864
So he didn't do anything wrong at all.

1088
01:09:17.184 --> 01:09:18.625
He just had the right to...

1089
01:09:21.256 --> 01:09:22.757
Why do they think this was a good idea?

1090
01:09:23.937 --> 01:09:24.938
I have no idea.

1091
01:09:25.558 --> 01:09:28.299
I've not actually, it's bizarre.

1092
01:09:28.940 --> 01:09:39.965
But we do know, we do know in the real world that people like to create their own legacy, their own thing, and sometimes they're threatened by founders.

1093
01:09:40.706 --> 01:09:42.907
I mean, this is not the first time I've heard of

1094
01:09:44.649 --> 01:09:50.255
private equity screwing up an acquisition because of a bad hire or so.

1095
01:09:51.236 --> 01:09:55.139
Well, in our, in our, in this case, they put a lot of debt on the company.

1096
01:09:55.560 --> 01:09:55.760
Yeah.

1097
01:09:57.457 --> 01:09:58.798
And that's not the first time either.

1098
01:09:59.518 --> 01:10:02.160
I mean, meaning that's what happens, right?

1099
01:10:02.561 --> 01:10:05.703
So this new CEO, and how did they tell you?

1100
01:10:05.763 --> 01:10:07.244
Was it just a phone call?

1101
01:10:07.264 --> 01:10:08.105
Like, I'm so sorry?

1102
01:10:08.125 --> 01:10:08.665
No, no, no.

1103
01:10:08.685 --> 01:10:13.228
It was, like I said, we were asked to come have a meeting at a hotel, just the four of us.

1104
01:10:20.614 --> 01:10:25.601
One guy from Golden Gate, the new CEO, and Gary and I.

1105
01:10:26.102 --> 01:10:31.049
So we weren't being summoned to a coronation, we were summoned to a hanging, right?

1106
01:10:31.470 --> 01:10:33.813
And so we sat across the table.

1107
01:10:35.255 --> 01:10:41.177
And the CEO said, his words were, I don't have any money or stock.

1108
01:10:41.477 --> 01:10:43.757
I have no money or stock for you.

1109
01:10:44.477 --> 01:10:44.738
That's it.

1110
01:10:44.758 --> 01:10:45.458
That's what he said.

1111
01:10:46.018 --> 01:10:47.458
And I looked at Larry.

1112
01:10:47.478 --> 01:10:48.659
I didn't have to ask Larry.

1113
01:10:49.499 --> 01:10:50.499
And I looked at him.

1114
01:10:50.519 --> 01:10:51.819
I said, well, the check cleared.

1115
01:10:52.560 --> 01:10:56.280
Do you look at that and wish you had done something different with that negotiation?

1116
01:10:57.181 --> 01:10:57.761
Absolutely.

1117
01:10:58.301 --> 01:10:59.841
With 20-20 hindsight,

1118
01:11:02.425 --> 01:11:12.671
I would have thought it was more important that not worry about the board, in a sense, or just declare we have a conflict.

1119
01:11:13.792 --> 01:11:15.673
It's just, hey, we're conflicted.

1120
01:11:15.693 --> 01:11:21.857
Okay, we're going to negotiate our deal out front, and you guys approve the deal, or don't we do it?

1121
01:11:21.877 --> 01:11:26.580
But all part of it, but wouldn't do it justice on an unwritten handshake.

1122
01:11:27.460 --> 01:11:34.167
Going through this, I'm going to ask for advice on two things.

1123
01:11:34.187 --> 01:11:40.052
I first want to understand when something like this happens to a founder and it happened to at the highest level.

1124
01:11:40.112 --> 01:11:42.855
I think a lot of founders, unfortunately, not a lot.

1125
01:11:43.295 --> 01:11:46.178
Some founders lose control of their companies much earlier on than you did.

1126
01:11:47.498 --> 01:11:59.071
What is your advice to that person whose identity is so wrapped up in the business now that you've had time to go through it and it probably wasn't easy when it first happened, but it's been years, a few years now.

1127
01:11:59.932 --> 01:12:04.937
What's your advice to that founder when everything they know is the business?

1128
01:12:05.317 --> 01:12:06.739
My advice is...

1129
01:12:08.751 --> 01:12:20.359
think very carefully before you enter into a transaction about what it's going to look like after and are you going to be satisfied with that.

1130
01:12:22.080 --> 01:12:30.186
In other words, if you're going to be around, trust but verify.

1131
01:12:30.506 --> 01:12:33.509
Do the research on who those buyers are.

1132
01:12:34.129 --> 01:12:37.852
Talk to other people who have sold to them.

1133
01:12:39.743 --> 01:12:41.404
How did that relationship work out?

1134
01:12:41.604 --> 01:12:50.251
The one thing we thought, whether you're interviewing an investment bank or a lawyer, a private equity guy, everybody promises the same thing.

1135
01:12:50.291 --> 01:12:52.693
We're unlike everybody else.

1136
01:12:52.894 --> 01:12:53.994
We are trustworthy.

1137
01:12:54.315 --> 01:12:56.436
Nobody else is trustworthy, right?

1138
01:12:57.037 --> 01:13:05.364
So, and my suggestion is anybody that is in that position,

1139
01:13:07.213 --> 01:13:08.895
Don't take it at face value.

1140
01:13:09.516 --> 01:13:10.658
Do your due diligence.

1141
01:13:11.999 --> 01:13:14.303
You said the Golden Gate damaged the culture.

1142
01:13:14.343 --> 01:13:17.166
I mean, bankruptcy is damaging in and of itself.

1143
01:13:17.206 --> 01:13:20.751
But what did they change that was the worst part of that?

1144
01:13:21.312 --> 01:13:22.514
It was a process.

1145
01:13:22.794 --> 01:13:23.615
So first step.

1146
01:13:26.299 --> 01:13:37.771
First up, and I wasn't around to see it, but we had 32 regional directors who had been with us an average of 14 years.

1147
01:13:38.692 --> 01:13:42.075
And my guess is they're probably average of 36 years old.

1148
01:13:42.135 --> 01:13:44.337
I mean, they all were homegrown.

1149
01:13:44.718 --> 01:13:46.860
Oh, literally, I think 100% homegrown.

1150
01:13:49.282 --> 01:13:56.027
And for whatever reasons, and I understand some, many were terminated, others decided to leave.

1151
01:13:56.047 --> 01:13:56.928
Okay.

1152
01:13:58.028 --> 01:13:58.949
That got blown up.

1153
01:13:59.810 --> 01:14:00.750
Okay.

1154
01:14:01.451 --> 01:14:05.854
And people, the CEO was brought in from Texas Roadhouse.

1155
01:14:05.874 --> 01:14:11.098
He brought people in from Texas Roadhouse or people who with no institutional knowledge and,

1156
01:14:12.538 --> 01:14:21.060
So number one, that was a disaster for the brand, for the company, for the culture, for the people.

1157
01:14:21.200 --> 01:14:40.325
Two, really critical for the future, I had 10 to 12 leases on my desk ready for execution with the major landlords, Simon, Taubman, General Grove, Westfield, all the people that CPK had these relationships with.

1158
01:14:41.364 --> 01:14:42.146
And they had no money.

1159
01:14:43.690 --> 01:14:43.891
Right.

1160
01:14:44.131 --> 01:14:46.818
And so they leveraged the company.

1161
01:14:47.340 --> 01:14:50.548
And so they killed every deal, 100 percent, not even looking at them.

1162
01:14:52.279 --> 01:15:00.244
So I heard immediately from the grapevine in the industry, from the developers, oh, screw them.

1163
01:15:00.264 --> 01:15:00.784
Yeah.

1164
01:15:01.044 --> 01:15:01.284
Right?

1165
01:15:01.324 --> 01:15:06.728
It's like, oh, if CPK thinks they're going to get any new good locations, forget it.

1166
01:15:07.128 --> 01:15:14.432
And when the good locations come up, the chance of them, us renewing the lease, that's a really high rent maybe.

1167
01:15:14.712 --> 01:15:16.593
Yeah, but they ruined all those relationships.

1168
01:15:16.613 --> 01:15:17.334
All the relationships.

1169
01:15:17.534 --> 01:15:17.674
Yeah.

1170
01:15:17.894 --> 01:15:19.335
So now those were the two...

1171
01:15:20.737 --> 01:15:29.082
absolute major, major things they did in my miscalculations that, number one, doomed the culture.

1172
01:15:29.762 --> 01:15:35.885
Then, where we had all this great training and everything was very polished.

1173
01:15:35.905 --> 01:15:44.310
So I think we were pioneers, not the only ones, in what the industry came to call polished casual dining.

1174
01:15:45.310 --> 01:15:46.411
And our people were sharp.

1175
01:15:47.482 --> 01:15:53.965
white shirts, black pants, ties, right, immediately wear blue jeans.

1176
01:15:55.846 --> 01:15:56.907
Well, what message is that?

1177
01:15:58.307 --> 01:16:06.051
Now, realize, too, again, apparently he didn't, okay, is our core customer were women.

1178
01:16:07.152 --> 01:16:16.136
CPKs were located mostly in the best shopping centers in America, and our core customer were upscale women.

1179
01:16:17.175 --> 01:16:21.440
whose word that they used to define CPK was queen.

1180
01:16:22.902 --> 01:16:23.103
Right?

1181
01:16:23.203 --> 01:16:24.725
If you ask some people, we did.

1182
01:16:25.105 --> 01:16:25.986
What word?

1183
01:16:26.227 --> 01:16:28.369
We would have liked innovative, creative.

1184
01:16:28.650 --> 01:16:32.454
Now it was queen, which is not bad for a restaurant business, by the way.

1185
01:16:33.035 --> 01:16:33.255
And...

1186
01:16:34.643 --> 01:16:46.426
independent research showed that we have the highest income level customer and the highest education level customer of any chain in America, not just pizza, any chain in America.

1187
01:16:47.166 --> 01:16:49.687
So the message was clear.

1188
01:16:49.747 --> 01:16:50.747
We were polished.

1189
01:16:50.827 --> 01:16:52.007
Our people were trained.

1190
01:16:52.467 --> 01:17:00.529
That was the unsung success of CPK, meaning the unstated success, this trust that people had.

1191
01:17:00.809 --> 01:17:01.569
Now, all of a sudden,

1192
01:17:05.703 --> 01:17:09.545
It's a subtle message that said things have changed, right?

1193
01:17:09.825 --> 01:17:10.806
And not for the better.

1194
01:17:11.846 --> 01:17:12.646
Now what happens?

1195
01:17:12.666 --> 01:17:18.269
So I go into one of our restaurants in Palm Desert and the server comes up to me crying.

1196
01:17:19.009 --> 01:17:23.151
Oh, you can't believe they fired our manager and they brought this kid in, right?

1197
01:17:24.432 --> 01:17:26.173
Well, what have you done to the culture?

1198
01:17:28.314 --> 01:17:35.758
So what do you think is going to happen?

1199
01:17:35.999 --> 01:17:38.981
And then change the design of the restaurants.

1200
01:17:39.061 --> 01:17:43.604
Now it's a reclaimed wood and green instead of CPK's yellow.

1201
01:17:44.608 --> 01:17:47.429
Right now we've got we've got to reclaim wood.

1202
01:17:48.069 --> 01:17:53.131
It's looking like a bar and grill, like a Texas Roadhouse.

1203
01:17:53.372 --> 01:17:54.772
No peanuts on the floor yet.

1204
01:17:55.332 --> 01:18:01.075
But but I don't mean to denigrate Texas Roadhouse, a great company, a great company.

1205
01:18:01.455 --> 01:18:03.015
It is for its demographic.

1206
01:18:03.476 --> 01:18:04.176
They do great.

1207
01:18:04.516 --> 01:18:06.237
OK, that's that CPK.

1208
01:18:07.102 --> 01:18:08.403
That's not CPK.

1209
01:18:08.943 --> 01:18:10.644
These are these messages.

1210
01:18:10.684 --> 01:18:11.685
This was all messages.

1211
01:18:11.725 --> 01:18:14.246
This was all the brand that we stood for.

1212
01:18:14.286 --> 01:18:17.508
The brand was far more than barbecue chicken pizza.

1213
01:18:17.588 --> 01:18:19.449
It was who was our customer?

1214
01:18:20.029 --> 01:18:22.171
What is that customer's expectation?

1215
01:18:22.651 --> 01:18:23.672
Where's the training?

1216
01:18:23.872 --> 01:18:26.073
What do our people look like?

1217
01:18:26.113 --> 01:18:27.614
What do they say at the table?

1218
01:18:28.374 --> 01:18:32.957
And most importantly, who are the people that want to go to work?

1219
01:18:34.302 --> 01:18:38.226
So destroy the culture, you destroy the company.

1220
01:18:38.406 --> 01:18:39.767
What's the lesson for...

1221
01:18:42.397 --> 01:18:45.658
The founder, think somebody who's just starting out.

1222
01:18:46.798 --> 01:18:52.339
All the things you just mentioned that they destroyed, these are such important things for a founder to take into consideration.

1223
01:18:52.399 --> 01:19:00.501
So, you know, we can't go back in time and we can't fix what's been done, but what's the lesson for somebody just starting out?

1224
01:19:01.741 --> 01:19:09.023
How do they make sure that they build these things that were integral to your success from the get-go, from day one?

1225
01:19:10.922 --> 01:19:12.204
All symbols matter.

1226
01:19:12.845 --> 01:19:17.090
Larry and I delegated, we trusted people with everything, except the brand.

1227
01:19:17.811 --> 01:19:18.531
Except the brand.

1228
01:19:18.551 --> 01:19:19.192
Except the brand.

1229
01:19:19.793 --> 01:19:20.033
Okay.

1230
01:19:20.414 --> 01:19:25.019
Larry and I and my wife, Esther, we never gave up the brand.

1231
01:19:25.039 --> 01:19:26.261
All right.

1232
01:19:26.613 --> 01:19:29.634
So everything else got delegated.

1233
01:19:29.654 --> 01:19:38.497
But we would sit and those messaging, the yellow, the way we designed it, everything.

1234
01:19:38.517 --> 01:19:41.638
And we never let that go.

1235
01:19:42.038 --> 01:19:46.900
How the brand was positioned, what it stood for, we never gave that up.

1236
01:19:47.495 --> 01:19:49.296
We've talked about a few different frameworks.

1237
01:19:49.316 --> 01:19:52.198
You mentioned ROC, which was one of the main frameworks.

1238
01:19:52.218 --> 01:19:54.639
So respect, opportunity, communication, kindness.

1239
01:19:57.041 --> 01:20:00.703
Something else that we haven't gone into, but I think was also part of the culture.

1240
01:20:01.383 --> 01:20:02.164
And it's so interesting.

1241
01:20:02.184 --> 01:20:03.505
I'm looking at all these different points.

1242
01:20:04.305 --> 01:20:05.366
I'm going to go through them all.

1243
01:20:05.886 --> 01:20:15.112
But as I go through these and sort of unpack why they're so important, and these are all the frameworks that are sort of discussed in the book as well, the frameworks that built CPK.

1244
01:20:16.072 --> 01:20:32.619
As you're telling me this story, I can look at every single one, and it seems like this CEO that was inserted, it seems like the CEO basically broke down systematically every single thing that made CPK good.

1245
01:20:33.180 --> 01:20:34.360
I'm thinking about the culture.

1246
01:20:34.400 --> 01:20:36.121
Another thing, I'll give you an example.

1247
01:20:37.001 --> 01:20:42.004
You said, if our employees came to work motivated and cared, the customer would be the beneficiary.

1248
01:20:42.164 --> 01:20:43.804
That's something that you've mentioned before.

1249
01:20:43.824 --> 01:20:44.925
Yeah.

1250
01:20:45.726 --> 01:20:48.707
And we were speaking about creating a great place for people to work.

1251
01:20:48.828 --> 01:20:54.211
Well, all of a sudden, you're letting go or forcing out all these homegrown directors.

1252
01:20:54.291 --> 01:20:56.953
You're letting people go that are at the management level at the restaurant.

1253
01:20:57.493 --> 01:21:02.356
So you're removing the great place to work.

1254
01:21:03.297 --> 01:21:05.198
That is no longer a great place to work.

1255
01:21:05.218 --> 01:21:06.679
It just becomes a job.

1256
01:21:06.879 --> 01:21:11.823
And then downstream from it just being, quote unquote, a job and not a great place to work,

1257
01:21:12.463 --> 01:21:16.224
the customer suffers and the experience suffers and then they go somewhere else.

1258
01:21:16.724 --> 01:21:24.646
So all these things that made CPK that you spoke about with like all this passion, these are all the things that basically PE destroyed.

1259
01:21:25.366 --> 01:21:26.686
And this is the end result.

1260
01:21:26.926 --> 01:21:33.648
It's bankruptcy in a CPK that was nothing like what it used to be when it was public or at its like sort of its heyday, right?

1261
01:21:36.708 --> 01:21:38.953
One other idea that I want to go into.

1262
01:21:39.734 --> 01:21:42.940
CPK was a work with company.

1263
01:21:43.140 --> 01:21:44.984
See, not a work for company.

1264
01:21:45.325 --> 01:21:45.886
What does that mean?

1265
01:21:46.654 --> 01:21:51.095
That's something we came up with pretty early, before Rock.

1266
01:21:51.995 --> 01:21:56.016
It has to do with what really became Rock.

1267
01:21:56.476 --> 01:21:56.936
Exactly.

1268
01:21:56.976 --> 01:21:58.516
Larry and I described it.

1269
01:21:58.957 --> 01:22:01.097
We're work with, we're not work for.

1270
01:22:01.117 --> 01:22:02.277
It was always Rick and Larry.

1271
01:22:03.618 --> 01:22:06.718
From day one, it was always Rick and Larry.

1272
01:22:07.138 --> 01:22:13.280
We wanted, and our home office wasn't called the home office or corporate headquarters.

1273
01:22:13.720 --> 01:22:15.420
It was called Restaurant Support Center.

1274
01:22:17.193 --> 01:22:24.915
And then later when we learned some of the terms, then we had what we call a reverse pyramid.

1275
01:22:24.975 --> 01:22:26.555
That was later business.

1276
01:22:26.595 --> 01:22:30.496
We didn't know that, but later it was, right, that it was reverse pyramid.

1277
01:22:32.137 --> 01:22:34.417
And we put the employee at the top.

1278
01:22:34.898 --> 01:22:36.938
As opposed to the leadership at the top.

1279
01:22:36.998 --> 01:22:37.638
And we felt that.

1280
01:22:37.738 --> 01:22:41.799
And the thing is, people, you know, you can talk the talk.

1281
01:22:42.720 --> 01:22:44.040
The question is, do you walk it?

1282
01:22:45.337 --> 01:22:48.538
And I think our success was it was real.

1283
01:22:49.018 --> 01:22:50.039
People believed it.

1284
01:22:50.759 --> 01:22:51.499
We believed it.

1285
01:22:51.539 --> 01:22:55.861
We weren't trying to sell anybody on something that we didn't believe.

1286
01:22:55.921 --> 01:22:56.961
And we were, you know what?

1287
01:22:57.621 --> 01:22:58.722
People had FUD.

1288
01:22:59.907 --> 01:23:01.968
In the end, people love working there.

1289
01:23:02.008 --> 01:23:02.788
You know, it's great.

1290
01:23:03.228 --> 01:23:13.292
People that work with us would say, it's so great when somebody asks me where I work and I say, CPK, they say, it must really be fun to work there.

1291
01:23:13.792 --> 01:23:24.636
If you think about all these different frameworks, so ROC, Reverse Pyramid, a work with company, not a work for company, these all build the culture.

1292
01:23:25.376 --> 01:23:31.098
All these, the way that you look at everything, they all come together, they build a culture.

1293
01:23:33.198 --> 01:23:35.759
How do you define what a good culture is?

1294
01:23:36.159 --> 01:23:37.640
Because there's so many different pieces.

1295
01:23:37.680 --> 01:23:38.900
It's hard for people to define.

1296
01:23:38.920 --> 01:23:41.241
And now I see it as it's come together.

1297
01:23:41.261 --> 01:23:42.081
But how do you define it?

1298
01:23:42.141 --> 01:23:44.542
Well, the way I think about it is this.

1299
01:23:45.922 --> 01:23:50.183
When I talk about how naive we were when we go in, here we are.

1300
01:23:50.243 --> 01:23:51.504
We've got these two lawyers.

1301
01:23:52.044 --> 01:23:52.244
Okay.

1302
01:23:52.820 --> 01:23:53.741
We are clever guys.

1303
01:23:53.761 --> 01:23:56.302
We say, hey, let's try this new style of pizza, right?

1304
01:23:56.803 --> 01:24:04.507
Then we come, we say, oh, not only are we going to try this new style of pizza, but we're going to build an international chain based on this.

1305
01:24:04.547 --> 01:24:14.634
Now realize at that time when we're doing this and we're dreaming this and we're signing the leases and signing our homes away, we don't have a clue, not a clue, right?

1306
01:24:14.894 --> 01:24:16.715
We think we're clever guys.

1307
01:24:16.775 --> 01:24:18.796
We have this, I call it the concept.

1308
01:24:20.097 --> 01:24:20.838
Now we get in it.

1309
01:24:22.160 --> 01:24:24.161
We have this chef we don't get along with.

1310
01:24:24.781 --> 01:24:25.062
Okay.

1311
01:24:25.502 --> 01:24:28.724
We see the clashing between the front of the house and the back of the house.

1312
01:24:29.384 --> 01:24:29.624
Okay.

1313
01:24:30.405 --> 01:24:32.206
In the process, we have to fire the chef.

1314
01:24:32.766 --> 01:24:33.326
Now it's us.

1315
01:24:34.947 --> 01:24:45.573
And I realized for the first time that it's not, if it were the concept, if that's all we have is a concept, we're not going to make it past the first two months.

1316
01:24:46.854 --> 01:24:47.114
Okay.

1317
01:24:47.674 --> 01:24:49.055
We're running a business.

1318
01:24:49.075 --> 01:24:49.295
Okay.

1319
01:24:50.812 --> 01:24:53.234
And the business is going to depend on people.

1320
01:24:55.275 --> 01:24:57.397
And that's where we shined.

1321
01:24:58.077 --> 01:25:01.160
That's where Esther and I and Larry, we took this thing.

1322
01:25:01.200 --> 01:25:03.902
And people felt our passion.

1323
01:25:03.962 --> 01:25:05.783
Esther was at the front door every night.

1324
01:25:06.523 --> 01:25:06.704
Right.

1325
01:25:07.024 --> 01:25:12.788
I mean, I was home with our two-year-old daughter at night, and she was working the front door.

1326
01:25:12.848 --> 01:25:14.609
And Esther was a great hostess.

1327
01:25:15.170 --> 01:25:15.430
Right.

1328
01:25:16.155 --> 01:25:18.758
But we were, people felt our commitment.

1329
01:25:19.098 --> 01:25:20.880
The investors felt our commitment.

1330
01:25:21.480 --> 01:25:24.443
We were all in, I mean, and loved it.

1331
01:25:25.324 --> 01:25:34.232
But in answer to your question, the difference, that big light bulb was, it's never going to be about the concept.

1332
01:25:34.573 --> 01:25:35.474
It's about the people.

1333
01:25:36.714 --> 01:25:54.000
you found a way to take those ideals that you had when it first started and maintain them across at one point fourteen thousand people how do you do that because we got people that believed it and could sell our vision

1334
01:25:55.232 --> 01:25:57.534
Everybody loved coming to work.

1335
01:25:57.794 --> 01:25:59.235
We were just talking about yesterday.

1336
01:25:59.635 --> 01:26:03.237
I had my son, and I was in Palm Beach Gardens, CPK.

1337
01:26:03.297 --> 01:26:05.738
It's been there since 1993.

1338
01:26:05.798 --> 01:26:08.960
The assistant manager, he's been with us 26 years.

1339
01:26:12.076 --> 01:26:16.039
He came in another server who's been with CPK for 23 years.

1340
01:26:17.660 --> 01:26:29.669
And we were talking about and reflecting about how much fun it was, okay, how the opening teams would be put together cobbles from different areas and people would love going to the openings.

1341
01:26:30.770 --> 01:26:32.471
And it was fun.

1342
01:26:32.912 --> 01:26:34.273
And people loved going to work.

1343
01:26:35.603 --> 01:26:36.464
That's how it happened.

1344
01:26:36.544 --> 01:26:42.349
And people believed in the vision and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and we were committed to quality.

1345
01:26:43.130 --> 01:26:48.655
And there was one period, we could talk about a down period for a moment, which I think is good.

1346
01:26:51.138 --> 01:26:58.625
The low point, other than that last sale, the low point was,

1347
01:27:00.317 --> 01:27:18.407
After we overexpanded with CPK, I'm sorry, with PepsiCo, after we overexpanded with PepsiCo, and they pulled the plug, and now here we are, we had built up all these teams of people, all these real estate people, right, to build all these restaurants.

1348
01:27:18.447 --> 01:27:19.147
Now we had none.

1349
01:27:19.207 --> 01:27:23.990
Now we were firing people, laying off people for the first time.

1350
01:27:25.237 --> 01:27:28.559
And PepsiCo said, we need to put, you guys don't know what you're doing.

1351
01:27:28.899 --> 01:27:31.380
We need to put somebody in to really run it.

1352
01:27:32.061 --> 01:27:33.001
And we allowed that.

1353
01:27:34.322 --> 01:27:36.323
And they did that.

1354
01:27:37.524 --> 01:27:40.065
And then they started cutting costs.

1355
01:27:40.685 --> 01:27:42.186
First time we ever had a deal with that.

1356
01:27:43.267 --> 01:27:47.809
And they put in this cheese that were frozen cheese pellets.

1357
01:27:49.790 --> 01:27:51.191
Instead of our fresh mozzarella.

1358
01:27:54.067 --> 01:27:55.708
And I was in Miami, actually.

1359
01:27:55.748 --> 01:28:02.513
What happened was when I would travel, I would always meet with managers, take them to dinner, sitting with a group of managers.

1360
01:28:04.301 --> 01:28:08.724
And I'm saying, you know, we're still committed to quality because Larry and I are trying to keep the spirits up.

1361
01:28:08.764 --> 01:28:10.064
Really, really tough time.

1362
01:28:10.084 --> 01:28:11.965
But we're being cheerleaders, right?

1363
01:28:13.006 --> 01:28:16.368
And I see, I'd say, you know, we're still committed to quality.

1364
01:28:16.408 --> 01:28:18.389
And I see one woman manager.

1365
01:28:18.409 --> 01:28:20.130
I look over another manager.

1366
01:28:20.490 --> 01:28:23.312
I roll her eyes like, does this guy really believe that?

1367
01:28:23.352 --> 01:28:23.552
Yeah.

1368
01:28:24.032 --> 01:28:24.292
Okay.

1369
01:28:24.713 --> 01:28:29.355
And I came back to the hotel and I called Larry and I said, we are really screwed.

1370
01:28:29.556 --> 01:28:31.337
Like I use something stronger than screwed.

1371
01:28:31.577 --> 01:28:31.957
Okay.

1372
01:28:32.317 --> 01:28:33.778
But that was the low point.

1373
01:28:36.742 --> 01:28:37.982
And you know why it was a low point?

1374
01:28:38.382 --> 01:28:46.465
It was a low point because we broke our bond with our employees, not because we broke the bond with the customers.

1375
01:28:46.925 --> 01:28:47.845
I've always believed it.

1376
01:28:48.185 --> 01:28:52.507
It's our people that made us successful.

1377
01:28:53.107 --> 01:28:54.087
That's the most important.

1378
01:28:54.267 --> 01:29:01.009
And at that particular point, you just felt disingenuous because you know that Pepsi is cutting, PepsiCo is cutting costs.

1379
01:29:01.849 --> 01:29:04.190
They're cheapening the product.

1380
01:29:04.790 --> 01:29:06.651
And everybody's smart and they know it.

1381
01:29:06.671 --> 01:29:06.852
Right.

1382
01:29:07.112 --> 01:29:09.734
And I'm sitting here trying to sell the word heaven.

1383
01:29:10.314 --> 01:29:12.275
I go, oh, this is not good.

1384
01:29:12.996 --> 01:29:14.317
So let's fast forward to today.

1385
01:29:14.377 --> 01:29:21.102
So obviously your book, The California Pizza Kitchen Story, How Two Federal Prosecutors Changed the Way America Eats Pizza.

1386
01:29:21.442 --> 01:29:22.803
That's out right now.

1387
01:29:23.363 --> 01:29:27.546
And I'll drop all the links to Amazon and wherever else you can get books.

1388
01:29:27.646 --> 01:29:28.447
It's available everywhere.

1389
01:29:28.963 --> 01:29:33.747
But outside of writing this book, what are you focused on today?

1390
01:29:34.047 --> 01:29:43.875
Like what was, you know, it's been a couple of years now since this happened, especially since you were unceremoniously kicked out.

1391
01:29:44.716 --> 01:29:46.878
So what was the next step after that for you?

1392
01:29:47.398 --> 01:29:52.422
So after the FCPK, Larry and I started another restaurant business.

1393
01:29:53.223 --> 01:29:54.724
It was a seafood concept.

1394
01:29:56.236 --> 01:29:59.019
in Brightwood, neighborhood of Los Angeles, called Bottlefish.

1395
01:29:59.880 --> 01:30:07.928
And we built it into, it was Esther and I, really, at that point, and built it into a successful business.

1396
01:30:08.388 --> 01:30:09.169
And COVID hit.

1397
01:30:10.510 --> 01:30:13.173
And that was the end of it.

1398
01:30:14.014 --> 01:30:15.676
People were being paid to stay home.

1399
01:30:16.638 --> 01:30:20.639
I couldn't get people to come back to work, couldn't make a deal with the landlord.

1400
01:30:20.939 --> 01:30:22.600
We thought we should be paying full rent.

1401
01:30:22.640 --> 01:30:22.740
Yeah.

1402
01:30:23.620 --> 01:30:27.061
And the business never restarted.

1403
01:30:27.201 --> 01:30:31.683
Would you ever start or bet on another restaurant?

1404
01:30:32.438 --> 01:30:35.580
My wife in the background here is waving absolutely no.

1405
01:30:35.600 --> 01:30:36.901
He's saying absolutely no?

1406
01:30:37.201 --> 01:30:38.021
There's your answer.

1407
01:30:38.141 --> 01:30:39.142
You've done your time.

1408
01:30:39.322 --> 01:30:46.026
You've committed so much of your life to building this, to building, I mean, such an incredible brand.

1409
01:30:47.546 --> 01:30:48.547
What's your focus now?

1410
01:30:49.327 --> 01:30:54.910
My focus now is as the author, right, and getting this story out.

1411
01:30:56.551 --> 01:30:58.452
What's the part of the story I care about?

1412
01:30:58.812 --> 01:30:59.473
It's the culture.

1413
01:31:00.338 --> 01:31:02.600
So I am so rewarded now.

1414
01:31:03.240 --> 01:31:08.585
My biggest reward is hearing stories from people that work from CPK.

1415
01:31:09.265 --> 01:31:10.106
Go on LinkedIn.

1416
01:31:10.586 --> 01:31:23.256
They are writing how it was the greatest job ever, how it affected them, how it's affected their family, how they carried that culture with them to other organizations.

1417
01:31:24.097 --> 01:31:26.319
This is so gratifying to me.

1418
01:31:27.491 --> 01:31:31.073
I'm really having more fun than I've had in years.

1419
01:31:31.453 --> 01:31:32.874
What did you learn about yourself?

1420
01:31:33.174 --> 01:31:34.895
First of all, why did you choose to write this book?

1421
01:31:34.955 --> 01:31:41.219
Because I interview a lot of authors, a lot of ex-CEO founder authors.

1422
01:31:41.819 --> 01:31:45.581
And for people that don't understand, it is probably one of the harder things that you'll ever have to do.

1423
01:31:45.601 --> 01:31:46.542
It's like a lot of work.

1424
01:31:46.982 --> 01:31:55.688
to put together a book, to make something, to take all of your life and put it into a few pages and then market it and put it out there.

1425
01:31:55.728 --> 01:31:57.089
And then you're doing the audio.

1426
01:31:57.249 --> 01:31:59.351
It's a fair amount of energy towards this thing.

1427
01:32:00.011 --> 01:32:01.892
So what was the reason why?

1428
01:32:03.013 --> 01:32:08.257
At first, it was because everybody who's heard my story said, you should write a book.

1429
01:32:10.355 --> 01:32:14.719
And not only the CPK stories, but the law stories.

1430
01:32:14.739 --> 01:32:16.300
There's lots of those too, right?

1431
01:32:16.760 --> 01:32:20.183
And so I would tell these over the years, and I've always been a storyteller.

1432
01:32:21.304 --> 01:32:24.466
And I was a writer in the sense that I was a legal writer.

1433
01:32:24.967 --> 01:32:26.388
I wrote briefs in the Supreme Court.

1434
01:32:26.408 --> 01:32:26.908
What are those?

1435
01:32:27.469 --> 01:32:28.630
Or writing arguments.

1436
01:32:28.670 --> 01:32:30.431
They're arguments.

1437
01:32:30.491 --> 01:32:34.735
Meaning you're trying to sell a story when you're writing a brief.

1438
01:32:35.527 --> 01:32:40.109
in a court, or writing a motion, you're trying to make a winning argument.

1439
01:32:41.610 --> 01:32:42.910
So it was natural for me.

1440
01:32:43.310 --> 01:32:46.211
But when I wrote the book, I had no notes.

1441
01:32:46.311 --> 01:32:47.232
I had no diary.

1442
01:32:47.832 --> 01:32:51.914
I did it all from memory, except when it became public issues.

1443
01:32:52.394 --> 01:32:56.176
The public company was easy because you find the filings online.

1444
01:32:57.576 --> 01:32:59.357
But other than that, it's all done from memory.

1445
01:32:59.817 --> 01:33:02.338
So it was cathartic to do it.

1446
01:33:03.359 --> 01:33:04.239
And why did I write it?

1447
01:33:05.428 --> 01:33:10.352
is I really wanted to get this message out about the culture.

1448
01:33:11.213 --> 01:33:12.374
That was really it.

1449
01:33:12.394 --> 01:33:12.835
I wanted that.

1450
01:33:12.855 --> 01:33:18.399
There was something for people to learn that I felt that I could impart and help others with.

1451
01:33:18.820 --> 01:33:24.364
Why was that message so important to you, for people to understand the culture of CPK?

1452
01:33:24.785 --> 01:33:27.267
Well, I guess in part because it was destroyed, right?

1453
01:33:28.672 --> 01:33:44.535
that I was so unhappy to see that it wasn't happening, you know, that to see it not be carried on, but yet know that there were still people there that really did care.

1454
01:33:45.516 --> 01:33:49.837
And so that all became really, really part of it.

1455
01:33:50.017 --> 01:33:55.758
And then I wrote the book before CPK was sold to new buyers,

1456
01:33:57.035 --> 01:34:10.047
And fortunately, there are new buyers now that bought the company last December and who are investing a lot of money in it and trying to recreate what made CPK great.

1457
01:34:10.728 --> 01:34:11.749
Have you spoken with them?

1458
01:34:11.953 --> 01:34:15.016
I have, and I'm optimistic about it.

1459
01:34:15.056 --> 01:34:16.718
I think they care about it.

1460
01:34:16.738 --> 01:34:18.340
They bought an iconic brand.

1461
01:34:18.360 --> 01:34:19.561
It's been 41 years.

1462
01:34:20.963 --> 01:34:21.784
They believe in it.

1463
01:34:21.824 --> 01:34:24.086
They're doing some fun stuff.

1464
01:34:24.207 --> 01:34:27.790
One, they're working on the culture and the restaurants.

1465
01:34:29.933 --> 01:34:31.715
Two, I read recently...

1466
01:34:32.776 --> 01:34:37.060
that they're doing vending machines in the airports and college campuses.

1467
01:34:37.380 --> 01:34:38.481
There's some in the airports.

1468
01:34:38.541 --> 01:34:43.927
Now they have great technology that cooks a pizza in 90 seconds.

1469
01:34:44.607 --> 01:34:47.851
And there's also like doing the Kung Pao spaghetti and the mac and cheese.

1470
01:34:48.431 --> 01:34:49.933
So it's interesting.

1471
01:34:50.213 --> 01:34:54.737
I've talked to the guys, the group that brought it, it's called Consortium Brands.

1472
01:34:54.877 --> 01:34:55.458
Yeah.

1473
01:34:57.252 --> 01:35:08.201
And then another group called Convive Brands, they're running the restaurants, and they're backed by Eldridge, which is a Miami-based company.

1474
01:35:09.041 --> 01:35:13.545
And I like everybody I've talked to there, and I think they're absolutely committed to it.

1475
01:35:14.266 --> 01:35:15.607
They paid a lot of money for it.

1476
01:35:16.227 --> 01:35:23.975
They believe it's iconic, and it's the first time that I've been excited and enthusiastic in the past 15 years.

1477
01:35:24.156 --> 01:35:24.676
I love that.

1478
01:35:25.517 --> 01:35:28.020
Are you going to work with them a little bit in any capacity?

1479
01:35:28.060 --> 01:35:33.966
I know they want to talk to me about what made CPK great.

1480
01:35:34.387 --> 01:35:36.189
I guess my response is by the book.

1481
01:35:36.569 --> 01:35:37.150
By the book.

1482
01:35:37.670 --> 01:35:39.231
Well, the book does, but the book does.

1483
01:35:39.271 --> 01:35:48.555
I mean, if somebody picks up the book, if you want to know, if somebody wants to know what made CPK great, it's all in the book.

1484
01:35:49.055 --> 01:35:50.616
And what made it great was the people.

1485
01:35:51.556 --> 01:35:53.697
But it was a combination.

1486
01:35:53.717 --> 01:35:59.200
It was a strong vision plus people that could carry it out.

1487
01:35:59.860 --> 01:36:01.421
Who did you write this book for?

1488
01:36:02.081 --> 01:36:03.361
I probably wrote it for myself.

1489
01:36:04.762 --> 01:36:06.283
Meaning, you know,

1490
01:36:07.546 --> 01:36:09.047
It's gratifying.

1491
01:36:10.167 --> 01:36:12.188
It's a gratifying thing to do.

1492
01:36:12.629 --> 01:36:13.469
It was cathartic.

1493
01:36:13.729 --> 01:36:14.990
Yeah.

1494
01:36:15.010 --> 01:36:16.050
It took a long time.

1495
01:36:16.110 --> 01:36:24.094
I sat, I sometimes sat for, I would sit for 15 hours and barely get, I was just writing, writing away.

1496
01:36:24.755 --> 01:36:29.337
Was it hard, some parts of it, to write, to sort of relive some of this?

1497
01:36:29.805 --> 01:36:31.466
I think maybe so.

1498
01:36:31.507 --> 01:36:40.154
Maybe the hard part was reflecting on what happened after we sold it and what happened to the people.

1499
01:36:41.275 --> 01:36:50.062
And so it made me, you know, your question is, should I have sold the company, right?

1500
01:36:50.883 --> 01:36:56.528
And I guess if you go to my deepest, deepest feeling about that,

1501
01:36:57.888 --> 01:37:03.868
If I knew that we weren't going to be involved, we wouldn't have sold it.

1502
01:37:04.933 --> 01:37:07.696
You can't go back in history and you can't change things.

1503
01:37:08.316 --> 01:37:11.699
But at the end of the day, this is the way that I look at it.

1504
01:37:12.260 --> 01:37:16.464
It's a, it's a good end to the story because now it's moving in the right direction.

1505
01:37:16.644 --> 01:37:27.434
And now there's a good group that is going back to the original CPK culture and they understand and they want your help to figure out how to do it properly and to build it to the brand that it used to be.

1506
01:37:28.335 --> 01:37:29.316
And at the same time, um,

1507
01:37:32.715 --> 01:37:47.112
a lot of the lessons that you've learned over your career, not all of them are easy lessons to learn, but these you're passing on so much wisdom to a younger generation of entrepreneurs who are going to navigate all the same difficult things you had to navigate.

1508
01:37:47.912 --> 01:37:48.113
So,

1509
01:37:48.929 --> 01:37:54.034
I hope that happens because that was the purpose.

1510
01:37:54.635 --> 01:37:56.276
It's the reason I'm doing this today.

1511
01:37:56.297 --> 01:37:59.460
I know, yeah.

1512
01:37:59.700 --> 01:38:04.325
When I said I do it for me, it's sort of interesting reflection.

1513
01:38:04.685 --> 01:38:05.806
I didn't think of it that way.

1514
01:38:06.187 --> 01:38:07.007
But the truth is,

1515
01:38:08.507 --> 01:38:09.748
Why does one do this?

1516
01:38:10.308 --> 01:38:11.329
It makes you feel good.

1517
01:38:11.630 --> 01:38:13.291
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1518
01:38:13.311 --> 01:38:14.732
It makes you feel good.

1519
01:38:14.812 --> 01:38:23.439
It makes you, it makes you, but it also, it's like, it's such a beautiful thing to pass on all, all this experience to somebody who's trying to figure it out.

1520
01:38:23.619 --> 01:38:24.620
It's so gratifying.

1521
01:38:24.640 --> 01:38:25.380
And it's so gratifying.

1522
01:38:25.400 --> 01:38:31.105
When I, when I talked to people with CPK for 20 years and when I went back for 20 years

1523
01:38:32.037 --> 01:38:32.678
The book launch.

1524
01:38:33.278 --> 01:38:41.005
One guy I signed the book for, gave the book to, but signed it for 38 years.

1525
01:38:41.805 --> 01:38:42.426
That's rare.

1526
01:38:42.646 --> 01:38:46.609
I think that's very rare for somebody to be with one company for 38 years.

1527
01:38:46.709 --> 01:38:51.173
It's becoming increasingly more rare, probably because there's a lot of reasons why.

1528
01:38:51.613 --> 01:38:52.194
One of them being

1529
01:38:53.840 --> 01:39:02.549
I don't think a lot of brands have done what CPK did, where people really like coming to work and see it as more than work.

1530
01:39:02.769 --> 01:39:03.370
I think that's rare.

1531
01:39:03.390 --> 01:39:04.551
I think it's very, very rare.

1532
01:39:04.591 --> 01:39:07.073
You probably have peers that you've worked with.

1533
01:39:07.093 --> 01:39:09.716
You see other businesses, other founders, CEOs.

1534
01:39:10.137 --> 01:39:11.818
This is my greatest pride.

1535
01:39:12.559 --> 01:39:15.222
When you go to the restaurants, do you tell them who you are?

1536
01:39:16.222 --> 01:39:19.464
Well, they know me now in certain ones, right?

1537
01:39:19.744 --> 01:39:20.865
Other than that, they wouldn't have.

1538
01:39:21.085 --> 01:39:28.529
But I was able to keep, to everybody's credit, I still have my management dine-in card.

1539
01:39:28.649 --> 01:39:28.949
Really?

1540
01:39:29.189 --> 01:39:29.750
Yeah, right.

1541
01:39:30.130 --> 01:39:39.154
So there have been times where I haven't signed anything to the end, and I pull out the card, my free, my free, I eat for free card.

1542
01:39:39.555 --> 01:39:43.677
If you could just pass on one message to somebody who's working at CPK.

1543
01:39:44.158 --> 01:39:47.127
who's been a lifelong employee, what would that be?

1544
01:39:47.976 --> 01:39:49.997
Keep the faith.

1545
01:39:50.457 --> 01:39:52.018
I think they're feeling it now.

1546
01:39:52.038 --> 01:39:54.119
They're feeling it.

1547
01:39:54.960 --> 01:39:55.800
They've been battered.

1548
01:39:56.280 --> 01:39:59.562
Where can people go so they can get the book everywhere?

1549
01:40:00.042 --> 01:40:07.706
Where else can they go to connect with you more, see more about the work that you're doing, any socials, website that they should go to?

1550
01:40:07.826 --> 01:40:09.067
RickRosenfield.com.

1551
01:40:09.687 --> 01:40:10.627
I've got my website and I'm there.

1552
01:40:10.727 --> 01:40:12.068
And I communicate with people.

1553
01:40:12.088 --> 01:40:13.269
I answer questions

1554
01:40:17.911 --> 01:40:18.492
Questions.

1555
01:40:19.032 --> 01:40:22.236
The last thing I always like to ask, you've had such an incredible career.

1556
01:40:22.376 --> 01:40:27.442
You've gone through like all these different roles as a founder, as a CEO, learned so much.

1557
01:40:28.142 --> 01:40:31.847
What would be the most important lesson that you'd want to tell your 20-year-old self?

1558
01:40:32.207 --> 01:40:35.050
If you could go back and just say this one thing to them, what would it be?

1559
01:40:35.871 --> 01:40:36.552
Follow your dream.