Burn it Down and Fail Forward Fast - Justin Keenen CTO Hart House

Justin Keenen, CTO of Kevin Hart's plant-based QSR, Hart House is redefining the role of tech in restaurants with his burn-it-down, fail-forward mentality. Justin's willingness to embrace change in tech and use it to create a remarkable experience establishes him as a titan in the industry.

Find out how Justin built his restaurant tech stack from the ground up to align with the Hart House brand vision.

Key Moments to Listen For:

• Don't be afraid to burn it all down and start again. Fail forward. 
• It's not legacy's fault that your restaurant tech hasn't been updated in 25 years
• Don't forget what you're running away from 
• Tech is no longer optional in restaurants. It's a requirement 
• Aligning tech with remarkability 
• Best-of-breed vs all in one
• Putting your employees first 

Related Resources
Here’s What Innovation Looks Like – Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu (Part 2 of 3)
Trailblazin’ CTO Completes Full Tech Refresh in Under 1 Year – Dawn Gillis Freebirds World Burrito
Who Comes First: The Employee or Guest? – Lauren Fernandez
Listen Up … (to your employees) – LeBaron Meyers, NotMe Solutions
Making Technology Invisible in the Restaurant – Amir Hudda CEO of Qu (Part 1 of 3)

Connect with Justin on LinkedIn 

Check out Qu's Annual State of Digital for Enterprise QSR & Fast Casual Brands

Transcript

Restaurants Reinvented - Justin Keenen

[00:00:00] Justin Keenen: You're trying to kind of shift the blame on the product when you say it's legacy, but really the blame is on you because you didn't change it when you should have, didn't do the upgrades when you should have, or you didn't do your due diligence, and you kind of sat there stagnant waiting for something to happen, right?

[00:00:14] That kind of mentality is just gonna hold back the whole business. So, you have to just really be able to move quickly and don't be afraid, right? Don't be afraid. 

[00:00:52] Jen Kern: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. This is Jen Kern, and today I am here with Justin Keenan, the Head of Technology from the Hart House. Hi, Justin.

[00:01:02] Justin Keenen: Hi, Jen. How are you?

[00:01:03] Jen Kern: I'm great. I'm so excited to have you here today. I mean, I'm always excited to have my podcast guests here, but Hart House has been getting quite the fanfare lately, and I feel like it's just the up-and-coming darling in our space.

[00:01:16] Justin Keenen: I hope you're right. I think we're right. We've got everything lined up. I, I really have never seen a brand that has so much going for it. We've got just, like, from soup to nuts, everything we're doing is just lined up. We're all very experienced, multi-unit operators, we have amazing leadership, amazing ownership, an amazing brand.

[00:01:36] Oh, and by the way, the food's pretty good too, so I don't know, I, I mean, it's, it's just like we're set up for this rocket ship, and I'm super excited about it, um, it's just gonna, it, it, we're gonna take over the world.

[00:01:50] Jen Kern: Well, I'm really excited about, too. I, I'm thrilled to watch the journey. I mean, it's so fun to see a brand new restaurant, new concept in a pretty trendy space, all plant-based, doing something new, which is QSR, plant-based QSR, I mean.

[00:02:06] Justin Keenen: We're not quite the first to do it, but definitely, I mean, it's been very, very recent, so I think we're gonna, you know, we're hoping to be the first to really do it at scale, you know, we want to get just a piece of the QSR pie, and it's not that much that we need really to make an impact, you know, the impact that we want to, to bring this, you know, accessibility to plant-based diets into places that, that haven't really seen it.

[00:02:30] You know, you've seen it in the fast-casual space, you've seen it in the, you know, casual dining, but QSR is relatively new, and it's gonna be, it's gonna be fun.

[00:02:38] Jen Kern: So, you're not the first QSR in plant-based?

[00:02:42] Justin Keenen: I think no, there's some small ones that are still growing. I don't really know, but I know Kevin likes to say that we're the first ones, in case you don't know, I know it's probably obvious, but Kevin Hart is our, our namesake and our big celebrity backer. So, um, just gonna get that out there

[00:02:56] 'cause not everybody knows that, which is surprising, but, you know, he said that a few times, I think we're trying to pin that down, you know, it, it's just one of those stats that's not, you know, it's not super relevant, I mean, we're gonna be among the first, and we're gonna make it a big splash. So, there are some, I think there's some others that are trying to make it happen.

[00:03:13] There's definitely some in the fast-casual space, but all that does is just prove that this is what consumers want, this is where things are going, this is where the industry is going as far as food production, all the way up to, you know, the dining experience. So, I think we're right on trend.

[00:03:27] Jen Kern: Well, it's fascinating, it's fascinating, and I wanna dig in a little bit more because I know that you met Kerry Fitzmaurice, who also has opened a plant-based 

[00:03:36] Justin Keenen: There you go, yeah. 

[00:03:37] Jen Kern: Pure Grit BBQ in New York City, uh, more of a fast-casual, and I got to eat there last week, which was a thrill, and it was del, oh my gosh, it was delicious.

[00:03:46] The brisket, or whatever it's called, the brisket, the Impossible burger brisket, was out of this world. The pulled jackfruit was outta this world. So, we'll dig into that a little bit later, but let's go ahead and, by way of introduction, can you give our listeners background, tell us who you are and, and how you found your way over to Hart House?

[00:04:03] Justin Keenen: Sure, yeah. It's been a, a trip. I started, you know, as many of us have, you know, washing dishes when I was a teenager to earn gas money, I had a 66 Mustang, gas I think was 87 cents a gallon, but I needed to, I needed to feed it so I could get around, that was my first impetus for getting in the business.

[00:04:22] Actually, I'll back up a little bit before that. My grandfather actually ran food trucks, um, he started a business of food trucks back in the fifties actually. So, the name of, it was called Snack Mobile, Mr. Snack Mobile was my grandfather, it was the, you know, the, the pickup trucks with the big silver back on it,

[00:04:38] um, it was, it was referred to kind of as industrial catering, um, but those are what he called cold trucks, he had over 200 of those. We had hot trucks, which are what you think of as food trucks today, they were just the hot trucks 'cause they had a grill, the cold trucks didn't. Um, so when I was a kid, I grew up, you know, climbing on pallets of cokes and chips and candy and, you know, I was the owner's grandkids, so I was like, kind of, you know, treated like royalty around there in the warehouse.

[00:05:05] There's a big ice house we could, you know, get in and stuff, but yeah, so I kind of, there was a huge kitchen alar, a large industrial catering kitchen, so in a way, I was born into the business, but it took me a while to make it to the tech side. I was, uh, in a restaurant and someone came in to fix our computers, our Aloha computers, and I realized that if that guy can do it, then I can do that.

[00:05:25] So, made the jump into the tech side, it's all been, you know, history from there. So, uh, I grew up in Scottsdale, so P.F. Chang's was one of my first brands. I worked for Sbarro in New York, which was 500 units, corporate-own units. Jumped over to Rubio's, done Tocaya, which is a, uh, a regional, uh, modern Mexican chain here in LA and Southern California,

[00:05:48] about 20 units, um, we also had a sister store called Toca Madera, and Veggie Grill, uh, before that, Veggie Grill was one of the leaders, uh, if not the leader in the vegan fast-casual space. So, I'm not no stranger to that.

[00:06:03] So, you said you made the jump from food into tech. When was that? When did you start in tech?

[00:06:09] Justin Keenen: Oh, do you wanna date 'cause it was a long time ago. Um,

[00:06:12] Jen Kern: I'm curious.

[00:06:13] Justin Keenen: yeah, it was a long time, it was so, you know, Aloha was the POS of the decade, right, I mean, it was the first Windows-based touchscreen POS, so it was growing like crazy, so I really built my career off Aloha, and being able to fix it. Yeah, and now you're at Hart House at this, this hot new brand, and you are the very first person in technology at a new brand. And so, what I'd love to talk to you about today is how are you building that technology stack. Because you have a luxury a lot of CTOs don't have today, and, you know, this is gonna be part of hopefully what we'll turn into a CTO series.

[00:06:50] Jen Kern: We had Dawn Gillis on, the CTO of Freebirds last week, we have you on now, and we're really wanting to tackle those questions around technology for fast-casual and QSR restaurants. And this is an industry that's been led, that's been plagued, not leg, lagged behind, but also plagued by legacy technology. So, here you are at a new concept as the first CTO getting to build it all fresh.

[00:07:15] What is, what has that been like for you and what does it look like, and, and let's talk about the process and how you're tackling each thing at a time?

[00:07:22] Justin Keenen: Yeah. I mean, that was what attracted me to, to this, you know, it's, it's not quite blue ocean, but it definitely's green field, you know, there is whatever we can do, which, you know, I'll be honest, that, that is scary in its, in its own right, but also, you know, exciting, like, I love to, you know, I think I'm at a point in my career where I know, you know,

[00:07:39] kind of how things need to get done, like I said, we have a, a very experienced team. And this journey, by the way, I mean, we just opened last month, but this journey has been going on for almost a year. So, the foresight that our founders had to build, you know, to build the team, to really establish the foundations and hire a tech guy before we even had any restaurants open.

[00:08:01] And that's really where this all started, right? Because a lot of restaurants will open their first restaurant just to see if it's viable, right? Let's just see if this one works. Okay, we got another one, maybe three, okay, and they really haven't, traditionally haven't added anyone in tech, they just relied on their vendor partners until they get to about 15 to 20 units,

[00:08:17] and then they say, "Well, maybe we should hire a, you know, someone to do the menu or whatever it is." So, the flip on that was huge, right? Because the last year I've been spending, which is, you know, kind of going over those possibilities, and what is the modern staff look like? And I've got a little taste of that 'cause in Tocaya, you know, I had some of those similar rules, right? I never had a server in my office, I don't want servers anymore, there's no point in having anything that's not cloud-based at this point in time.

[00:08:42] But I built out a roadmap, you know, I built out a, a three year plan. I'll be honest, that was kind of like deck fodder, to be, you know, sort of knowing full well that it's not really ever gonna, you know, I'm actually working on things that are on year three of my plan with, and, and I'm in month one and it just flip-flopped so much.

[00:09:00] You know, the idea is just modern and flexible. Make sure that it's something that your users want, right? So, bring to the table only the things that, that you think are gonna work for them, and let them kind of decide between, you know, the best-of-breed and in whatever platforms you want, I mean, obviously, I guess we could, should say that like we are best-of-breed,

[00:09:19] Justin Keenen: obviously, we're not gonna build a lot custom at this point in the game. However, it wouldn't surprise me if that starts bleeding into my stack because it's just so much easier these days, and that's, I think the biggest lesson is that things are easy, you know, things are, are, shouldn't be that hard.

[00:09:35] You should, you know, most of everything that we can do now in tech, you know, there's no, I don't have to, like, wake up at two in the morning and reboot an exchange server anymore, right? All the things that we used to do, things are just so much easier, a couple clicks get done, you know, projects that used to take two months.

[00:09:49] Justin Keenen: Um, so I wanna make sure that I'm agile and, and able to move and pivot, as quickly as possible, you know, that's, that's basically what I'm looking at, I'm looking at best degree partners. I'm looking for software companies that are not too old, but not too young, right? So, are kind of in that sweet spot.

[00:10:04] The ones that are excited about working with me, and push them a little harder, right, let, let me influence them in ways that help them and help their product for the industry, not just for, not just for what I'm doing at the time. Um, when I find those kind of partners, then, then I know it's the right thing  So, I know Andy Hooper is the CEO there and, and I had him on, oh gosh, early in this podcast. He came on when he was at &pizza. so, I've had, I've had the pleasure of, of meeting him and getting to know him, I know he is a fabulous leader. And that, and he brought you and as you said, over 10 months ago, before the first restaurant was ever opened,

[00:10:41] Jen Kern: and let's just call that reinventing restaurants right there because like you said, usually, and I think it's the same thing with marketers, by the way, and these, you know, smaller chains, it takes a couple restaurants before they start getting serious about all these, you know, non-essential functions, right? 

[00:10:57] Justin Keenen: Yeah. Right.

[00:10:58] Jen Kern: But so, Andy had the foresight to say like, "Hey," and tap you on the shoulder, we need a technology leader strategist, someone that's really, knows their stuff to come in before the restaurants are even ready to go prime time. And give us a little look behind the curtain. What was, what was that initial conversation like?

[00:11:17] And what did you sell him on in terms of the way you would do this in your vision?

[00:11:22] Justin Keenen: So, first of all, Andy's been here a lot less time than I have. So, he is, you know, I, we had a different CEO when I was hired, but I mean that the question still applies, obviously, it was this conversation, it was how do you scale and how do you build in a restaurant from store zero, and what do you bring in and how do you balance that. 

[00:11:41] So, that conversation is still happening with Andy today, it's, you know, a lot of that stack that I built that, you know, and the deck is not implemented today, right? It's really, you have to focus on the things that are essential, and, you know, the things that really make an impact, the things that the users are gonna have time to, to really manage and take care of

[00:12:01] because the worst thing you can do is spend a bunch of money on a SaaS product that sits there dormant and nobody ever uses it, right? User adoption is the number one most important thing. But the interesting thing about Andy and what he did at &pizza, what I've been trying to do, and now am able to do, is really turn the front end towards the employees, as well, right?

[00:12:20] I've been trying for a long time to build a stack that is equally usable for customers and employees, right? You know, the employees interface with the brand much, much more than customers do, right? They're there on a daily basis. So, one of the things I talked about years and years ago at FSTec was building a rewards app for employees,

[00:12:40] 'cause every, that was five years ago, I was like, "Oh, you gotta have rewards, you gotta have rewards." Like, that was the big innovation of the time.

[00:12:46] And I'm like, "Yeah, okay, that's great and everything, you know, airlines have been doing this for a long time, hotels been doing this, why, why don't we do this for employees?

[00:12:51] Justin Keenen: And really, like, let's build stuff that, that enables retention, enables, you know, empowerment, those kind of things." Andy's very, very focused on the employee experience. In fact,we're looking at this as a disruption to QSR from the inside, right? So, we want to really treat our employees well,

[00:13:10] we want to pay them well, we have certified living wages and we do have, uh, actually rewards program for our employees. So, you know, when things are, you know, certain metrics are met, you know, they might show up with a Starbucks card and say, "Hey, thanks, you did a great job today." They treat yourself to Starbucks for us.

[00:13:26] So, we're really getting to do some stuff that we really wanted to do for a long time, and, and your point about non-essentials, it's not lost on me either 'cause that's, I think that's the shift, right? That's the shift, is tech and non-essential, right? Tech would used to be like plumbing, right? It, like, we, yeah, we need plumbing,

[00:13:44] okay, I guess plumbing's essential, but nobody really cared about it until it wasn't working, right? Like, it wasn't working, "Oh my God, we gotta call Justin, we gotta call him, we gotta fix this thing." That was really what tech was kind of looked at, right? It was always kind of a cost center, it was a, you know, a necessary evil to some people, right?

[00:14:01] You had to have that touchscreen Windows-based POS or else you couldn't do anything, but the shift is now that tech is no longer optional, right, and I think we've been saying that for a while, I think we've all heard this at this point in, you know, in 2022 and through Covid and everything, the Covid acceleration and how tech really had to get adopted.

[00:14:21] But I'm really feeling the shift now that no longer is it an option, right? It's, it's a requirement, and that I think speaks to why, you know, why tech is brought in early, why we're bringing in tech leadership, and I include Andy in that, too, as a CEO. 

[00:14:38] Jen Kern: Awesome. Where did you start? Like, did you first go out and get a POS? Did you, I mean, you're talking about this whole employee, like, putting the employee first? Phenomenal.

[00:14:48] Gotta do it, gotta do it. That's also not a nice to have anymore. Putting the employee first and thinking about how they interact with the technology. So, what was the stacks origins? Where did you begin?

[00:15:01] That's a good question. I'm trying to think. I know we, you know, we, we definitely thought about digital first, right, digital channels first, you know, we wanted to make sure we had a robust digital channel that can scale, um, we are, you know, definitely concerned about scale as we grow, you know, we have many, many stores in the hopper, you know, yeah, POS was probably one of our biggest concerns. There's a lot of opinions on POS, right? Um, ultimately it's a, it's kind of an operational project, right? They're the ones pushing the buttons, but, you know, it really does have to enable your platforms, I mean, it has to enable other platforms, has to enable your, the entire stack, right?

[00:15:36] Justin Keenen: So, POS is obviously very, very important. To be honest, like, the first decision I made with KDS, like I, I think that KDS is the most important in-store technology. We're, that production that happens in the back is, you know, not insignificant, I wanna make sure that they had what they needed.

[00:15:53] I had a really robust KDS system, so I kind of started building it up from there. And then, you know, again, best-of-breed, smart and informed decisions, but really it was kind of those three things, it was our online platforms, POS, and KDS that really led the way.

[00:16:06] And you've mentioned "best-of-breed" a couple times. I'd like to just unpack that a little bit because I think it probably means different things to different people, you know, if you've been in the industry a long time, I think it's, it's not lost on too many people that you can either go best-of-breed or single source or one solution, right? Um, how, how do you define best-of-breed?

[00:16:30] Justin Keenen: Well, I actually really don't like platforms that try to be all things, all people. I much prefer the partner that can stay in this lane is such an overused word, but you know what I mean? Like, stay, stay focused on its core principles, you know, if it's an online ordering platform, great,

[00:16:46] you're doing online ordering, you know, I wanted to make sure that everything else I need is enabled, right? If there is a rewards platform that does the same thing, right, the rewards platform is also best-of-breed, does what, you know, they all have to play nicely together, but I don't need an online platform that also does, like, half-arsed rewards and half-arse this gift card,

[00:17:04] you know, they, they never do everything well. I want a platform that does what it does very, very well. That's a big challenge these days, everything and try and be everything, and they want, just wanna increase their revenues, right?

[00:17:16] And try and get what, you know, what you call stickier, right? The more they have you, the more they have you. So, that was one of the things I noticed with like NCR, with, with Aloha, and, and MENU Link, right? They used to be separate, MENU Link was a thing you added onto Aloha, then it's what happened,

[00:17:31] they bought 'em, and they started absorbing 'em, and then they started building features that were only available to people that were, you know, so, they, it's a game that they play, I think it's misguided, I think they, you know, the shareholders or the people in the ivory towers really think that's a great way to increase revenue, but it's also a great way to spread yourself too thin.

[00:17:47] Those are what I try to avoid. So, everything's gotta play nice in the sandbox, that's, that's the most important thing, and that's what I really look for, that's probably the number one thing I think about. And I think that message is starting to come through to a lot of platforms.

[00:18:00] Right. I think that's a great way to explain it, I mean, you're talking about essentially scope creep, right? And, and it's true, it happens, I mean, I've worked in many different industries, and as soon as you get successful in one area, the shareholders or the investors or the CEO, they wanna, like, broaden the focus.

[00:18:18] Jen Kern: And it is one of the things I love about our company because we have stayed completely in the lane of fast casual and QSR only. And I have people a lot of times say to me, I don't wanna say all the time, but oftentimes, like, table service brands will come and say like, "Why can't you guys?" And it's like, believe me, we do the due diligence, but we wanna stay really good at what we started to say we were really good at,

[00:18:44] and it is focused, and it is narrow, in a way, but there's plenty of challenges and things to conquer in, in the enterprise space for restaurants. So, um, just staying fast-casual QSR has been better for us and for me as, as a marketer, because when that scope winds, your brand also gets diluted. And, you know, so it's not even just been in our industry, but that, it just happens a lot,

[00:19:08] and it is a shame because I think from a buyer perspective, I mean, I'm the same way. Like, when I have a marketing agency come to me, and they're like, you know, "Oh," and they're selling to me, and they're selling to me, and I'm like, "What are you really good at? You know, did you start in PR? Did you start in graphics?

[00:19:23] Did you say?" 'Cause there's, it always comes back to one thing that they're really good at, you can't be, it's like you said, you can't be good at everything. And that's true in life, I mean in life, and that's true across industries,

[00:19:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:34] Justin Keenen: a hundred percent. I mean, everywhere you look, it's like, it's the same thing. You know, I get ads on Instagram for a company that made, they're a belt company right now, oh, but now they're selling wallets, now they're selling watches, now they're selling other stuff and, and they just dilute themselves, right? And I'd rather just go to the best place and buy the best belt I can and be done with it.

[00:19:51] Jen Kern: Right. So, you're, you're building your stack. So, you've got the online ordering, you've got the POS, you've got the KDS. What are you working on today?

[00:19:59] Justin Keenen: What I'm really working on is guest experience, I mean, I am working on an employee experience also, but I'm focused on guest experience as we get ready to launch our digital channels, you know, I want to make sure that that experience matches the in-store experience as much as possible.

[00:20:13] I want it to be, enjoyable, easy, not frictionless, but reduced friction, right? I wanna make it really easy to get there, get the food, like I, I wanna just make sure that, that my food comes out at the time you want to eat it, right? That's, that's kind of a, one of the tricks I think the industry has, and that we've been trying to solve for a long time.

[00:20:32] So, that's, that's mostly what I'm focused on. Training materials and building some more, you know, adding, bringing some more partners into the stack, and probably the number one thing is data management. So, now that I have all these great platforms, this is the perfect time for me to start building my data.

[00:20:51] I'll just call it a data warehouse for the sake of conversation. So, start building that, start, start collecting that data. I have a lot of it already, and it needs to go somewhere, and it may not be that I have to deal with it right now, right, I may not know what to do with it for a minute, but there's no reason that I can't start collecting it.

[00:21:09] Well, that's, that's a great point because data is another one of these terms that the industry's really focused on is getting the data and how are you using the data, and it seems like we're still a little bit away from being able to actually use real-time data in effective way that's gonna drive revenues and profits, as well as help on the labor side.

[00:21:32] Jen Kern: So, I would love to know where that journey takes you and, and what you have planned there, I mean, I, I'm guessing with just one location right now that you don't have huge plans for the data, but I guess there's a question in there about how do you see data really helping?

[00:21:50] Justin Keenen: It's, I mean, incredibly powerful. I mean, there is so much to do with it. There's more data in the world right now that we can figure out what to do with it, right? I mean, I technically, I could get every button pressed from my digital platform, every button pressed from my POS, every button pressed from my KDS.

[00:22:06] There's actionable insight in there, don't ask me how to do it or what to get, or like, I don't know yet. 

[00:22:12] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:13] Justin Keenen: I think, uh, most people don't know yet. I think, you know, if you wanna look at it from a kind of a, an organizational perspective, like, I mean, like organizing where the data, the buckets are, right?

[00:22:22] So, you wanna organize everything as best you can so that when it comes time to use it, you're, you're there. I think the most important thing is, you know, iterate, like, just keep trying stuff, like keep, keep looking and keep, you know, keep going. I think there's a lot of opportunity to collect data that we don't even think about that, that there's things out there that can really make a difference.

[00:22:44] Um, machine vision is coming, and that's something where I, you know, that's a ton of data. What do you do with it? You know, and AI and all those kind of, you know, emerging technologies that are super powerful and we're all starting to adopt, and there's, I see real true use cases for them, but what are we gonna do with that, right?

[00:23:00] So, you know, from a marketing perspective, I think it's a little more cut and dry these days, I think, you know, you wanna segment and you want to, you know, drive buying behavior, you know, you want to hyper-segmentation is kind of a thing now, right? You wanna really get the right message to the right people at the right time.

[00:23:16] You want to really drive profitability. So, we had some conversations last week about, you know, price elasticity, and like, what happens when you trade an item in, you know, you launch an LTO, what are you trading out of there? Like, a lot of people don't even know that, they just think, you know, they run it by gut feel, right?

[00:23:32] Justin Keenen: Oh, this is great, so popular, super duper, well, you might be losing money on it, or you might be losing customers, not, you don't really know. So, you know, the personalized marketing, I think, is something that, that we're all starting to get comfortable with, but there's endless possibilities, and there's all sorts of things that I, I'm thinking about doing with actual, real, in-store data and pla, channel data, that can really make a difference for everyone and make, just make the operations a lot more, um, efficient.

[00:24:00] Jen Kern: Yeah. Well, I would think menu data, too. I mean, as a guest myself and, and even when I was at Kerry's restaurant last week, I, I was giving her some recommendations about the, you know, menu, not just the wording of the menu, but when I think of it from a data standpoint, like, the most popular items, as a new concept, which you are, I would think it's gonna take a while for you to see what the most popular items are, and the data will hopefully show that, right? 

[00:24:30] And maybe it's not one or two, but there's one in each of your categories. But in QSR, you wanna keep a fairly limited menu, you don't have the options to have like really long menus. And those seem to perform best anyway, like, the more focused, like, back to focus, the more focused the menu, I think the easier it is for the guests in the QSR to order quickly.

[00:24:51] So, I'd love to know, like, as you go along, like, how you get that data to determine those, those items. I mean, I keep thinking back to, you know, as you were talking about, about the data, one of our favorite salad places here took all the meat off the menu, and my husband nearly had a fit, I mean, they just had, it was one of those bowl places where you could go through and you could get chicken or say, you know, but it was a salad place.

[00:25:15] Jen Kern: And he was like, "Why did they take?" And I asked them about it, and they said, "Well, it was getting too expensive." And it's like, I'm curious about that, I'm curious if they looked at the data, you know, I mean, again, I'm just, I just have one, you know, one point of view here and one, you know, it's not like statistically relevant, but I think data with menus, I would say, is a pretty big, big lever.

[00:25:37] Justin Keenen: Yeah. And pricing especially, I mean, pricing is going up across the board everywhere. We've always been so reticent to raise prices in this industry, we're always afraid that, you know, it's gonna radically alter our value proposition and, and, and lower sales, but, you know, I don't know. Do we know? I, I mean, we can guess, right?

[00:25:55] We can, we can look and see, or we can, or we can put it in place and see what happens over the next couple months, or we can really do real testing and real data-driven decisions, you know?

[00:26:05] Jen Kern: Right.

[00:26:05] Justin Keenen: I don't, I don't see that happening as much in, at least in the smaller organizations, I think the really large organizations are getting better and better at that.

[00:26:12] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:26:13] Justin Keenen: But the smaller ones are just now starting to learn it, and we're gonna have to take price, I mean, we just have to take price as an industry, and the supply chain is upside down, and we're having so many problems with, with everything, um, that we have to, I mean, it's, it's, it's happening.

[00:26:26] Jen Kern: Yeah, yeah. When we talked a few weeks ago, you had mentioned you had order-ready board that you were coming up with 

[00:26:32] Justin Keenen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:33] Jen Kern: a new plan for order-ready board. Can you share some of that ‘cause I think that has a lot to do, obviously, with the guest experience?

[00:26:39] Justin Keenen: Absolutely. Yeah, and, you know, being new to QSR, one of the first things I kind of learned was that, you know, PA systems are bad, I mean, that's, that's what we're, you know, I, I've also got team members that are, you know, losing their voices, yelling numbers in the restaurant right now, so.

[00:26:55] Um, order ready board is definitely kind of an emerging, I don't wanna call it emerging technology 'cause it's been around for a while, but it's emerging, um, guest experience.

[00:27:04] The, the guests are getting trained by other QSRs and, and people to learn to look at them, and starting to notice and starting to, you know, know that they're useful to them. So, really what I wanna make it is really super on brand, super fun, super attention-grabbing. I want it to be as, as noticeable as a PA system without the, without the noise that's happening with it.

[00:27:26] And I just want it to be fun and funky and different and, you know, I mean, it could be anything from, you know, a, a cartoon voice yelling, you know, stuff, or like the Batman graphics, like, "Pow! Blam!" Like, "Boom, your order's up!" Like, I want it to be really eye-catching and really fun, you know, that, that marketing tech merger is real, you know, that MarTech kind of idea.

[00:27:48] Justin Keenen: But so many, a lot of people don't realize that it's real in a creative sense, right? It's not just, you know, how's your email structured or those, you know, segmentation and all those kind of fun things that happen in the MarTech stack, but it's really more about branding and, and the experience, right? Making it fun.

[00:28:08] So, the order ready board is gonna be, I'm gonna try and make it as interesting as possible, as fun as possible, and as useful and functional as possible. Um, it's one of the areas I'm exploring machine vision for, you know, the, uh, uh, technically, uh, machine camera should know when the order's ready and should know when the order's picked up.

[00:28:26] So, that's what I want that board to, to really operate hands-free, like I don't, I don't need anyone to manage that board, that's been, I think the downfall of the order ready board is, you know, you gonna have to have a bump screen or something ready for the operator to have in front of them so that it goes up on the order ready board, and it's cleared off.

[00:28:44] You know, if it's not integrated with KDS, then you need something else to, you know, also. So, I've seen three screen systems for order ready board, and that's just, that's something that's too complicated. That's something that, that ops will just, they won't see the benefit of it, right? So, again, keeping that value proposition like that, that user adoption, not just looking at the guest side, but the employee side.

[00:29:03] Justin Keenen: Like, I wouldn't give the employee something that they're not gonna want to use, and I'm not gonna be easy and seamless to use, and I'm not gonna give the guests something that they're not gonna use. So, it's, it's a little bit of a trick, I don't really see a lot of people doing it well, I see some of the bigger QSRs having those order-ready boards that just have, you know, 10 to 20 orders on 'em.

[00:29:21] Then the, the order numbers were five to six digits long, they fall off on a timer, I think, I don't even know how they fall off, maybe they have to bump 'em too, but that's the point when they don't get ready, and that's, that's when we're training the guests to ignore them. 

[00:29:34] Jen Kern: That's so cool. I love the idea of the machine vision in there and, and almost making it like automated, hands-free.

[00:29:40] Justin Keenen: Yeah, it's there, I mean, we can do that, I mean, you know, we have, we have the, the technology and the capability of doing it, it's just connecting the dots, and that's what I think probably one of my most important roles are, is in the company, is connecting all the dots.

[00:29:52] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you know, Don talked last week about biometrics and she said something similar about, um, you know, the less an employee needs to touch a screen, the better.

[00:30:04] Justin Keenen: A hundred percent.

[00:30:05] Jen Kern: And, yeah. And so, I was like, "Oh, I love, I love that," you know, just, just keeping things, like, really simple, very futuristic, if you will, um, and retraining people, right?

[00:30:16] Retraining people, you don't need to be constant, this isn't like a cash drawer anymore, right? Like, this isn't a POS it's just a cash drawer, and giving new people new ways to do things from an employee standpoint is, is huge. And you, you talked about the employee rewards. What are you doing there?

[00:30:32] We're using a partner called Honor Roll that is, uh, it's, it's basically an employee facing app that rewards them for, you know, attendance, or I'm not, like speed of service, right? So, if a, if a team really beats speed of service, um, metrics, we'll reward the whole team.

[00:30:48] Jen Kern: With what? What are you rewarding them with?

[00:30:50] Justin Keenen: You know, it varies. We, we try to keep it different. I, I mentioned the Starbucks card earlier, was like, you know, that's pretty generic, you know, people aren't as excited about that anymore, but that's one of the things we can drop in. They're like, "Hey, coffee on us." It's that kind of idea, you know, I mean, it's like, it's not like here's a new Toyota, but it is like something in between, here's a gift card to Amazon, or, you know, that kind of stuff.

[00:31:09] Or even, you know, or here's an extra day off, like, here's a paid day off, you know, go just relax and recharge, um, that's just one of the pieces, you know, we are also giving all of our employees a lifestyle spending account, and we're giving them benefits, full benefits, you know, at 30 days right off the bat, no matter how many hours they work.

[00:31:26] So, and that's on top of our certified living wages. So, you know, it's just a piece of the puzzle, but, you know, we think people should be excited to work here and we wanna enable them in many, many ways, and I, I, I keep that in the back of my mind, like that is kind of the, the underlying thought behind the hands-free and the machine vision, right, is an underlying thought is let's make this job as easy and seem, I want them to enjoy coming to work,

[00:31:50] you know, I don't want guests yelling at them saying, "Where's my order?" that kind of stuff, like, all, anything I can do is focused on that, and making their jobs easier and, and more fun and more rewarding,

[00:32:00] Jen Kern: Have to, have to do it, have to do it.

[00:32:02] Justin Keenen: Think so.

[00:32:02] Jen Kern: Because, 'cause I keep going back to this. I, I heard an operator say to me a few months ago, people don't wanna work in restaurants anymore. It's like,

[00:32:10] Justin Keenen: Yeah. No, they don't wanna work in your restaurant anymore.

[00:32:13] Jen Kern: Right? Is that what it is? 

[00:32:14] Justin Keenen: That's what, they don't wanna work in that restaurant. They're tired of being treated the way they've been treated, they're tired of getting the wages, they're, you know, they're tired of that, we, we recognize that, you know, like things like when new statutes come out, California pass, you know, new minimum wages and stuff, we're like, "Yeah, great.

[00:32:28] Bring it on." Like, we wanna raise the whole industry, we're gonna lead the way and felt, set by example.

[00:32:34] Jen Kern: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, and is that coming from Kevin? Is that, where's that coming from? Because that's huge.

[00:32:42] Justin Keenen: You know, I, I think it's something we all share as values, but it's something that Andy is really bringing to the surface and bringing with him. I don't wanna speak for him, but I, I think I'd be safe to say that, that one of the things that attracted him to this brand himself was the ability to do kind of things that we've all been trying to do for so long.

[00:33:02] And, you know, it's like, it's time, it's like time to kind of fix things that have been broken for a long time and, and really, like, hopefully, change things for the better, make this place a better, better place to work and a, and a better planet to live on. It's important to us. I think it's important to all of us, but he's really, he's really the driver of that.

[00:33:20] Jen Kern: That's. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and it is, it's, it's just gotta happen, and it has to happen, we need brands like yours, well-funded, setting that example, you know, and you mentioned, okay, so they're getting livable wages, you're doing the reward, you're giving benefits, you're working on improving the culture, number one, like, make it a place that people actually wanna work. And then, you mentioned a lifestyle, something like a lifestyle.

[00:33:46] Justin Keenen: Yeah, lifestyle spending account, it's basically a discretionary

[00:33:48] Jen Kern: Lifestyle spending account, what is that?

[00:33:49] Justin Keenen: A discretionary account. If you wanna, you know, if you wanna take yoga classes, you wanted to, uh, you know, go and rent a sailboat and, you know, go on a little sailboat ride, like, uh, for an hour, like, whatever you want to spend that money on to, to just, you know, the intention is to recharge, relax, and kind of de-stress and, you know, do things, uh, lifestyle, to support your lifestyle.

[00:34:10] If you, um, you know, let's say you're really into downhill skiing and you needed, uh, some new boots, whatever that is to support your lifestyle, on that same note, I mean, we're doing kind of a forced savings account as well, it's called, it's called Sunny Day Fund.

[00:34:23] We're actually making an additional contribution to their Sunny Day Fund so that they have a forced savings account that they can use, the idea Sunny Day, right? So not, not a rainy day fund, but a sunny day fund. So, you know, you can save up and take a vacation or you can save up and, and go to that nice dinner,

[00:34:40] but, of course, it is a savings account, so if something were to go wrong, like, your car battery dies, you gonna need a new battery or stuff like that. 

[00:34:45] Jen Kern: Yeah, it's fantastic. And can you help me understand a little bit about the brand in terms of the brand ethos? What are the brand values and, and how are you aligning that with the culture and with the employees and, and all the programs and even the technology stack?

[00:35:02] Justin Keenen: Yeah. We haven't acronym, I wish I could remember all, we just heard it so I don't have it memorized yet, but, um, it's really like craveability, remarkability, accessibility, um, oh boy, I wonder if I get it right, value, I'm gonna miss the E, but anyway, um,

[00:35:17] Jen Kern: Well, that, that is the acronym that I'm, crave.

[00:35:19] Justin Keenen: Crave, yeah. It's, it's, it's close, I'm close, don't quote, I mean, I'm, I may not have this exactly right yet, but, um, no, but that is the idea is, you know, we want, first and foremost, it's food, right? It's, it's gotta be good food no matter what, um, whether it's plant-based or, or whatever else it is, it's gotta be good food, that's number one. Number two, it's, you know, it is gotta be remarkable,

[00:35:38] you know, our, our, our namesake is a remarkable guy, um, I think there's a lot of noise out there in, in, in the world, and we wanna make that, uh, a noticeable and remarkable experience in many ways. 

[00:35:50] So, when I talked about the order ready board being fun, being animated, and having videos and stuff like that on it, that was because I want it to be remarkable, um, I want it to be something you remember, yeah, of course, I, I'm a little, you know, I want it to be functional, I want to be attention-grabbing, but I also want it to be something you remember.

[00:36:07] I want it to be something different and something that no one else is doing. Accessibility is another big thing. So, we're going into markets at a very reasonably low price point, you know, it is a true QSR price point where sandwiches are $6 or $7. So, that is something we really wanna do is bring plant-based eating to places that maybe haven't had a lot of options, or have been ignored in the past, or have been discounted

[00:36:31] like, oh, that's, you know, that's not the right neighborhood for this. What we find is, and I think we find this in general in the world, is, you know, you think it's not the right neighborhood, you put something in, and all of a sudden it goes crazy, and they're like, "Yeah, we've been waiting for this for years."

[00:36:44] There's kind of neglected demographics, there's neglected neighborhoods, neglected markets, and I think we can really, like, jump into and really make it easier for people to eat plant-based once in a while. 

[00:36:56] Justin Keenen: Yeah we want plant-based eaters to have another option as well, but we want really omni boards and flexitarians to be able to have that option, so. Those are really what's driving us, as well as, like, the employee side.

[00:37:07] I love that because it can be pretty expensive, right? I mean, the plant-based stuff can sometimes, you know, be more expensive than eating chicken.

[00:37:16] Justin Keenen: And sometimes for no reason, right? I mean, you know, Starbucks charges an extra $2 for, uh, non-dairy milk when it's probably cheaper than the milk it is themselves, right? So, people take advantage, you know, you know, my, my fiance is gluten-free. Everywhere we go, you have a gluten-free brunch, it's an extra $6, right?

[00:37:34] People like to kind of take advantage of that stuff when really it's, it just doesn't make any sense, uh, you know, keep things affordable and easy and accessible and, and it'll get adopted more, and, and, you know, not only that on the, on the food technology side, the production side, there's new analogs coming out.

[00:37:50] I mean, I can't even keep up with them, I mean, we have a, a full time corporate chef, head of culinary innovation, Mike Salem, brilliant guy that is just, his job is to keep up with this stuff, keep up with the new analogs, the new technology for creating those analogs and the new product that, that's gonna be available to us, um, over time.

[00:38:09] Jen Kern: Yeah. That's, that's really cool.

[00:38:10] Justin Keenen: It's in, it's super fascinating.

[00:38:13] Jen Kern: Yeah, it really is. And is Kevin himself, is he a vegan?

[00:38:17] Justin Keenen: He's a flexitarian.

[00:38:19] Jen Kern: He's a flexitarian. What is that?

[00:38:20] Justin Keenen: Yeah, so that's where, you know, it's, it's where you're, you try to be conscious of what you're eating, and I guess, how do I describe it? I'm sure there's a much more utilitarian definition for it, but, you know, it's, it's, yeah, I want to eat plant-based more, I want to eat maybe less meat, or I maybe want to eat more fish,

[00:38:37] or, you know, like, one day a week I'm gonna do this, it's almost like that vegan after six idea, um, just kinda trying to make an impact where you can, and doing, you know, in little increments, you know, you don't have to be a full-blown plant-based eater, vegetarian, vegan, anything like that to enjoy our food or to be part of that, or to even, even make a difference, right?

[00:38:57] I think if we can get a, a small, minuscule percentage of carnivores to switch just a small minuscule percentage of their diet, we're gonna have a big impact on the environment and, and our, on our supply chains.

[00:39:10] Jen Kern: Yeah. And I'm just shocked at how good it actually can taste. I'm shocked, especially when you put some of that sauce on it, delish. Like, one of the things I had at Kerry's place was the, I think I mentioned the jackfruit, and it’s like pulled jackfruit. So, I've never in my life eaten a jackfruit.

[00:39:28] Okay, I live on the East Coast, I think they're like from Hawaii or something, some island. I've never eaten it, but it was like a pulled jackfruit that was mimicking a pulled pork, right? She put all this sauce on it and, you know, smokes it, I, I think, and then she put it on the nachos, so there were nachos, the jackfruit, and then cashew cheese, cashew queso,

[00:39:53] and I'm probably butchering the names of all these things, but it was like cashew-based queso and then some jalapenos. Freaking delicious.

[00:40:02] Justin Keenen: That's great.

[00:40:03] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:40:04] Justin Keenen: Flavors are still flavors no matter where they come from, and like I said, the analogs are getting better and better and better every time. 

[00:40:10] Jen Kern: What do you mean by the analogs?

[00:40:11] Justin Keenen: An analog is a meat analog, a beef analog. So, we, our beef analog is our burger patty, right, it's not beef, it's an analog for beef.

[00:40:18] Yeah. Well, I, I kind of wanna jump back to the technology stuff bit 'cause you've been in the space for a while as, as you mentioned, starting out and with the Alohas in the nineties, and to where we are today.

[00:40:30] And the industry has seen so much change in disruption in the past couple years, and, and mentioned like the pandemic, and yes, that was an accelerant for technology, thank you, because it helped our business survive, um, but what are some of the things, I mean, there's so many different opinions in this space about which kind of technology to build, how to go about the platform,

[00:40:52] Jen Kern: we talked about the best-of-breed versus what you talked about, which is, you know, going a, a single source solution, which, which is not your preference. Where do you see the industry today from a technology standpoint? Where do you see us, and where do you see us headed?

[00:41:08] Justin Keenen: Well, like I alluded to earlier, like, I really do see the technology becoming, moving to the center of the business, of the hospitality business. It's now, like, you know, really important to have it, you know, front and center. So, you know, and yeah, I think where we're, really where we're moving is that kind of idea where we're really,

[00:41:29] you know, it used to be like Domino's was the technology company that sold pizza, right? But in reality, we are all really technology companies in a way, consumers are making their decisions based on, you know, based on the technology you have available in, in a lot of ways, and I'm, I really feel that shift happening in the, in the industry quite a bit now.

[00:41:47] I think it, it is just adapting to, you know, the new, the way it is, like, the way it is, is that, you know, you might have a lot more SaaS platforms these days, right? You might have, uh, a lot more technology in places that you never thought you'd have technology before, being ready for that, being able to move quickly.

[00:42:05] One of the biggest challenges that I have, and I think a lot of people in my position relate to is being in the moment when you're needed, right? So, IT projects technically, you know, traditionally have this long lead time, right? Like, you start ideating and then start planning and then, you know, then you gotta sign contracts, then you gotta do pilots. By the time you get the product launched, whatever it is, I mean, your business could be way down the road, and like, not even worried about that particular problem anymore. So, being able to react quickly, being able to implement quickly, not being afraid to fail, you know, that's a kind of a startup mentality, I think, I feel like that startup mentality needs to be more prominent, right?

[00:42:48] Justin Keenen: I think it's, it's something that we can learn from startups, and hopefully I can help in whatever ways, but, you know, I'm not afraid to burn things down either. Like, if I built something and it's not working, I, I'm not afraid to give it up and leave it. So, you know, it's, it's that whole thing about legacy.

[00:43:05] I think legacy's kind of a weird word. I think it's, I think legacy you can translate to like, the guy before me, that's really what it is, right? It's the, the IT guy before me chose this and I hate it, so it's legacy, or you can say that legacy is, is something we should have changed five years ago and didn't, right?

[00:43:21] So, you're trying to kind of shift the blame on the product when you say it's legacy, but really the blame is on you because you didn't change it when you should have, or you shouldn't, didn't do the upgrades when you should have, or you shouldn't, didn't do your due diligence, and you kind of sat there stagnant waiting for something to happen, right?

[00:43:37] That, that kind of mentality is just gonna hold back the whole business. Um, so you have to just really be able to move quickly, and don't be afraid, right? Don't be afraid. Another thing that's important, I think I try to frame everything, and it's, it's don't forget what you're running away from. A lot of people like to run towards things, but don't forget what you're running away from, right?

[00:43:58] The legacy platform is like, oh, we can't put in something else. It's gonna cost too much, oh, there's no ROI, we gotta pencil out this ROI on this, right? What is that gonna be? That's running to something, right? You're trying to chase something, I see this in the, in the kiosk conversation all the time. We're gonna save labor

[00:44:14] when we put in kiosk, like, okay, that's every single person I know that's been in kiosk says, "No, we don't save labor. That's not the point." But what you're running away from is bad, uh, guest experiences or, or refocused labor, or, you know, labor that's focused too much on, on taking orders when they can be doing other things.

[00:44:30] So, don't forget what you're, what you're leaving behind, and how important that is, and what value that has, right? If you're running away from something legacy, there's a whole bunch of garbage you get to jettison off the back of the boat, that's just as important of the stuff that you're headed towards.

[00:44:44] Jen Kern: Mm. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I wanna hit rewind and hear you say it all again, because it's really very poignant, I mean, yeah. What does legacy mean? Like, does it mean you're shifting the blame to someone else or something else? Is that what legacy means?

[00:44:58] Justin Keenen: What is legacy? It's older than x number of years, than it's legacy, I mean, it's cloud-based, is that legacy? I kind of hate the term. I think it's an excuse, you know, I think we've kind of pinned it on, you know, like, people like to pin, you know, Aloha, Micro, those kind of things, right?

[00:45:14] Those old POSes as legacy POSes, but, you know, it's not a hundred percent fair on them, but if you have a legacy system and you consider it legacy, why do you still have it? I mean, it, what, then get rid of it, like.

[00:45:28] Jen Kern: Yeah. Well, I mean it comes down, I think it's what you're saying, I think it's all in there, like, have you been innovating and evolving, like you said, staying in the moment, the innovation, the evolution. If you're like Oracle, right, and you've continued to evolve, I'm just, you know, throwing out examples of like, I use Acrobat, like a lot of times for design, and has that evolved?

[00:45:49] No. Canva is taking over the world, by the way, market in design, you know, designers are now being at, like, professional designers are now being asked to design in Canva, which is a free tool, right? Um.

[00:46:00] Justin Keenen: Perfect example. That's a great example.

[00:46:03] Jen Kern: Yeah. So, evolution, right? Like, are you continually then, then it's not then in my mind, it's not really legacy. If you evolved and stayed relevant, then it's not legacy, if you haven't, and I think that's why it gets used a lot in our, in our industry is a lot of companies haven't been pushed to innovate.

[00:46:21] Justin Keenen: Well, they, yeah, they think of it as expense, right? You don't see a lot of restaurant chains that have an R&D budget, right? They're not, they're not worried about that kind of stuff so much, they're just trying to cut costs and, and manage their P&Ls, those kind of traditional things. But that kind of goes back to what I was saying about best-of-breed and, and kind of making sure everybody plays well together.

[00:46:41] I, I would never, ever sign a, a, any length of term contract with a company that's gonna hold me back in any way, right? And that can never be replaced, like, everything's gotta be able to be plug, if I've got Acrobat throughout my organization, it better be damn easy to pull it out and put some, put something else in really quickly.

[00:47:01] That's one of the biggest decision factors that I, I use when I'm deciding on platforms, and best-of-breed, I consider that best-of-breed, right? I want them to earn my business constantly, I'm not gonna sign a 30-year contract with them, in fact, I try to keep 'em to one year wherever I can, two is most I'll ever give anybody 'cause things change too much, things change too much in one to two, three years, so. 

[00:47:21] But it's always, you have to earn my business, and you have to be replaceable. A lot of the vendors don't like that so much, but I, I have a fair number that do earn the business and are running, gonna run much longer than their contracts are because they stay relevant, they stay up to date and, and they earn that business all the...

[00:47:38] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[00:47:38] Justin Keenen: But I'll never let anything hold me down. 

[00:47:40] Jen Kern: Yeah. Well, the contract terms, that's a great example, too. Um, I mean, I'm thinking about my own technology partners that I use here for, you know, in, in marketing that I've used for years and how they, over the years, have tried to, "Okay, we'll give you this discount, go two years, go three years." And I've always wanted to stay one year with my partners and having that flexibility, you know, because I know there's a lot of people that have gotten locked into 5, 10-year terms, and that's a lifetime today. It's a lifetime.

[00:48:11] Justin Keenen: You asked, but why they're doing that, right? I mean, you know, and, and if it's money, you know, if I have to pay a little bit more to have a lower term, I'll, I'll do that. But yeah, they, you know, too many vendors look at it as a contract value, right? And not a lifetime value, and, and they really think, like, at the end of three years, you're gonna leave 'em.

[00:48:31] I mean, that's a possibility, I mean, obviously, if you don't keep up if you're, your support isn't good, or your roadmap isn't working out, or you're not evolving fast enough, absolutely I'm gonna leave you, but why not just do those things? And then we, we don't have a problem, right? Let's just keep up, and, like, keep going,

[00:48:47] like, this is a rocket ship that I'm on right now and, and you know, you have to be able to keep up on this rocket ship, but we're gonna leave you behind, uh, make that very clear to anybody that I sign with.

[00:48:56] Jen Kern: That's great, that's great. Keep, keep us all accountable, Justin, for sure. And responsible, and responsible. We, we believe that there's a responsibility that we owe the industry that it hasn't been there all along. And so, we take it pretty seriously. One of the things you also said is, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking of it, like, what problem are you trying to solve?

[00:49:19] You said, you know, what are you running away from and what are you running to, and to get clear on that before you just, you know, over here and go to the next widget, kiosk, whatever it might be, like, what is the problem you're trying to solve? And that, you know, is it the, is it in the guest experiences or is it in the employee experience? Is it the UX and the UI, you know, what is it? And that's, it's great advice.

[00:49:45] Justin Keenen: Well, quantifying those two, right, to piggyback on my, I, you know, where the, where I was saying about, like, when we're a cost center, when technology's a cost center, or we report to the CFO, right? Because nobody else wants to keep an eye on us, right, somebody's gotta control our spending, right?

[00:49:59] Jen Kern: Dawn said that too. I, I, I was like, "Really? Reporting to the CFO?"

[00:50:03] Justin Keenen: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's...

[00:50:04] Jen Kern: Terrible idea.

[00:50:05] Justin Keenen: Well, that's how it's been. I mean, that's really how it's been, I've reported to many CFOs. Some of them understand technology, some of them think they understand technology, some of them don't at all, but they do know what the P&Ls look like, and they do know that they need to see something.

[00:50:19] I always felt like that ROI exercise was just to appease that, right, I, I felt like there was some sort of like, "Hey, if we do all this, you can always kind of make the numbers kinda look right or make it kind of show an ROI over x number of months or something." And I was just kind of to appease them, but you can't make all your decisions that way.

[00:50:35] It's so much more important to be strategic and about where you want the company to be in, you know, x number of years or x number of months, you know, so if you just, when I say that before, like, if you shift the IT guy from the CFO to the CEO, right? And the leader of the company is also leading technology and understands that it's part of the DNA of the brand and that the things that we're gonna do are going to enhance the brand experience and we're gonna enhance the employee experience, we're gonna enhance, I don't know, faster reporting or enhance the board experience, whatever that, that is, that, those kind of strategic decisions are much, much more important and not always quantifiable.

[00:51:14] Justin Keenen: Uh, so that's kind of what I mean, like, what are you running from, are you running from, like, you know, are you gonna, is it gonna be a legacy platform in another year, right? If you're gonna, if you, like, in another year like this thing's kind of fading away, it's getting old or outgrowing it, now is the time to start thinking about those things,

[00:51:28] thinking ahead and getting those things on, on your, on your radar, and it's maybe not a roadmap per se 'cause roadmaps are kind of useless, the, just like budgets, they're useless, as soon as you make them the wrong, right? But, you know, knowing what you, where you wanna go, and knowing how you wanna remain competitive, remarkable,

[00:51:48] and, and, you know, really delight your guests. I think it's a lesson that I've learned from Netflix before, before Netflix kind of turned a little bad, but, um, Netflix would constantly be updating their UI, constantly be changing things around because they knew that you had to, they had to be your first choice in your media streaming platform.

[00:52:10] Justin Keenen: They wanted to be that all the time, and in order to do that, they had to constantly be changing, the pace at which they changed and updated things, which is absolutely amazing, but it was very much part of their strategy and built into their DNA from, from day one.

[00:52:25] Jen Kern: Yeah, yeah. So, such a good reminder and, and even the way that you just mentioned what you did about reporting to CFO versus reporting to a CEO, I mean, you're exemplifying it, just through our conversation today, you, you've talked about aligning the tech to be remarkable, which is a big part of your brand ethos and your, and your brand values is to be remarkable.

[00:52:50] And, and I remember the first time you talked, you said, I want my, I wanna make it this way. So, you're already thinking, I mean, like, you own, like a business owner, like, you know, the C-level, you know, versus if you're reporting to a CFO, I mean, I haven't heard a single CFO, I'm sorry, I don't, I mean no discouragement to CFOs.

[00:53:09] Justin Keenen: Nope. Me neither.

[00:53:09] Jen Kern: That has mirrored the brand, like saying like, "Hey, we need to, we need to make this, the technology, you know, mirror the brand, it’s gotta be," I'm, I'm losing for whatever reason the word I'm trying to grab, but, you know, it's, it's gotta, it's gotta emulate the brand, and you're not gonna get that from a CFO, you're just not.

[00:53:31] Justin Keenen: No. So, two things about that is the CFOs, I think the CFO has to be really good at translating that into board speak, right? I think the board, that, that's their number one goal, I guess this is gonna cost us money, but here's we're gonna get out of that, and, and this is why we're doing that. And I think there's a framing that you can do to those higher level, uh, the higher level leadership about that and how we're gonna stay relevant in the marketplace.

[00:53:52] Again, maybe not quantifiable, but hey, we gotta remain competitive, and that's the kind of language you have. And the other thing you said about ownership, like, you know, yeah, there's been kind of some talk, like, you want your employees to act as if they own the company, you know, that's a very one-sided conversation, right?

[00:54:06] You want them to take responsibility and really, you know, not take that pencil home with them or not, you know, whatever, like, pay attention to the pennies and the nickels and dime. You want them to act, be empowered to like, you know, whatever, the actual, actual nuts and bolts of, of empowering, like, a lower level employee to make decisions never comes through,

[00:54:23] it's like, it's one of those kind of things that it's like almost propaganda, like, we want you to be ownership, but at the higher levels when you get to like a director or above, I think it is important to keep that in your mind all the time. It's on me to put myself in the center of the business, I, I like that technology is moving to the center of the business, but it's also on us as tech leaders to move yourself to the center of business and be involved where you can be involved.

[00:54:48] I actually am bringing in a demo of an automatic like lid ceiling machine for drinks, nothing to do with technology, right? It's nothing to do with IT, traditional IT, I don't even know why they were at a conference that I went to, but I thought it was the coolest thing, it's kind of emerging tech in a weird kind of way.

[00:55:06] Jen Kern: Yeah. 

[00:55:06] Justin Keenen: That's what I'm, what I'm showing the team is that I'm, I care and I'm interested in everything that's going on, and I'm not just, you know, gonna, you know, oh, it's not my, that's not my department. Stay in your lane is not something that I like to talk about, it's, it's, my lane is, is all lanes.

[00:55:21] Jen Kern: Yeah, is the business.

[00:55:22] Justin Keenen: Yeah, and so, you know, it is on us a little bit to kind of, to muscle our way into where we need to, to go and what we need to do. And it's harder at lower levels, you know, when you can get to a C or, you know, an SVP or executive level, obviously, you're probably already there, or you did a good job at doing that,

[00:55:39] but kinda in this middle level, that I've gone through recently, from manager to director and, and VP is, is to make sure that you, you're doing it and you're doing it in the right way and you're thoughtful and careful. 

[00:55:50] Jen Kern: Yeah. Yeah. So, I have this question I wanna ask you, and I know we're getting over an hour, so, so we'll, we'll wrap up soon, but, you know, I can talk to you all day. When you look out at our, at the industry from a technology viewpoint what gets you really excited that you see happening, and what gives you pause and scares you?

[00:56:11] Justin Keenen: Oh, wow. Okay. Let's think about that for a second.

[00:56:14] Jen Kern: What gets you really excited? I mean, we just came out FSTec, you saw a lot of tech, you know, we've talked about the changing role of CTO and the technology moving to be being, you know, a, a primary part of the business and, and not an afterthought. I mean, what are the things that you look at, and you see happening, and you're like, "Oh, I'm so excited about this?"

[00:56:34] Justin Keenen: You know, I'm sure we've talked about these things, you know, throughout the conversation they've come up, like, obviously I think I'm excited about the merger of tech and marketing, I'm, I'm excited about how that's happening and how we're getting more and more involved, and I'm excited about how guest experience is really a focus in the digital space, right?

[00:56:54] So, really, really making sure that people can interact with you and get good hospitality, even in the ultra-convenient kind of way, you know, environments that we're in, get that kind of touchpoint where, where they may not be expecting them. That's exciting to me. Um, and the same I, and a given is that anything I say about that guest side is also for the employee side, right?

[00:57:17] I wanna make sure that, like I said earlier, like the, everything that the employee wants to interact with this is also seamless and easy and like super cool and, and just convenient, right? I wanna make sure I can support the hospitality, you know, equation, right? Like, so many people talk about, like, what is hospitality and where is hospitality going?

[00:57:37] And, you know, I don't know if, if there's a strong hospitality point in QSR, right? It's, it's more about delivering product, but I grew up, I, I kind of skipped some parts of my, my background, but I did work at fine dining for quite some time, and I just, I always have that, I always want to, to make sure people feel, you know, at home.

[00:57:58] And, you know, eating is such an emotional thing, right? We're giving you something you've gotta put in your body, like I want, it's an experience, it's not just a sustenance like, "Hey, I gotta eat, like, fast." Sometimes it is, but sometimes, like, you know, you really want to experience it. So, anything I can do to support that is exciting to me. That scares me. 

[00:58:15] Jen Kern: I just gotta say before you go, before you go into this scares me. It's personal, eating is personal, hospitality is personal, I don't care if you're a QSR, they're putting, they're giving you money to eat your food. 

[00:58:31] I take that very personally, and I, and you know how I feel about this topic of hospitality, you know, like, we need to, we need to fight to keep it alive, you know? Because, it, 'cause we're not Netflix, you know, and we're not Amazon, you know, we are delivering food, and it is, it's, it's an experience, and it's a choice that, that you're, you're putting something in your body and, and it is very personal.

[00:58:54] It's very personal to me, and it, it, it really irritates me when people are like, "Oh, we gotta be like, yeah," it's, you're not eating, it's not food, you're ordering stuff to put in, you know, put in your house or whatever, I mean, it's different. Okay.

[00:59:08] Justin Keenen: Yeah. I mean, they say you eat with all your senses, right? I mean, what, there's not that many things that you do with all your senses, you know, smell, taste sight, and sound, everything that it's, it's eating, I mean, you know, it's what we put into our bodies, it's, it's one of the most important things we do on a regular basis.

[00:59:23] Jen Kern: Yeah. So, what scares you? What terrifies you? This, I think this is an easy question, like, like what, what do you see going on? You're like, "Oh my gosh. Stop that. Stop it."

[00:59:34] Justin Keenen: Hmm.

[00:59:35] Jen Kern: What scares you?

[00:59:36] Justin Keenen: Oh, I wish I knew what you were thinking now.

[00:59:40] Jen Kern: I think I'm too opinionated.

[00:59:43] Justin Keenen: It's probably something if I thought about, I would be scared of. 

[00:59:46] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:59:46] Justin Keenen: Um, I'm, I mean, I'm definitely scared of economic factors, I think, you know, that's gonna influence all parts of our lives, all parts of our industry. Um, I, I see the industry bifurcating into kind of this, you know, QSR, like ultra-convenient and I see it going towards a very high touch.

[01:00:03] Um, and there's not much being in the middle, um, these days. So, that does scare me a little bit, and because that is part of that hospitality, in order to get that hospitality, you know, experience, you have to go to a much higher end place that, that, that worries me, just because, like, like you said, this is, this is my industry,

[01:00:19] I have deep care for, for it and for providing that. So, that, that scare me a little bit. And then, price that we're gonna have to take because of, you know, inflation and supply chain and that's gonna drive that divide even more, and, you know, just, that really affects our accessibility idea, right? So, if we are not really accessible to people, then it kind of shoots ourselves in the foot.

[01:00:41] I'm trying to think of something from a technology side that, that is, that scares me. I guess probably the biggest concern that I have is that now that we have all this stuff, it's like privacy and compliance and, and keeping up to date on legislation, and meeting their expectation, our, our user's expectations for privacy, and being able to manage all that stuff.

[01:01:03] Justin Keenen: That part scares me, right? So, machine vision is fun, sounds great, right? There's machine vision that can tell you sentiment, right? One of the things I like to know is, like, yeah, my ge, they, they did a guest side, so here, there's a theme going here, which is guest employee, but they did it from a guest side.

[01:01:18] They wanted to see how many people walking in the door were happy when they came in, or happy when they left, or vice versa, those kinds of things. I'd also like to see how many of my employees are smiling at every guest, right? Or, or how many, who smiles the most, like, maybe have a competition, and part of my employee rewards program is who smiles the most at my customers, right?

[01:01:36] Who say, right, sounds cool. Also, privacy, right? Also, anonymization, also PII, also that part of it. So, you know, I, I heard a story about, I think it was Checkers 'cause I think they're in the news a lot about how they are doing AI drive-thrus, right? I think they're, they're one of the pioneers in that field, and they have a sign on their drive-thru, I think they said, I'm not even a hundred percent sure how this works, but a sign that said, "You, by, by placing an order, you've accepted our terms and conditions." Really? 

[01:02:10] Like, is that everyone in the car? Is that everyone that's done that? Is that, I mean, how is that possible? I'm gonna, it's supposed to open up my phone, go to your terms and conditions website right now, hit in a check box before I can place an order with you. Those kind of things are rapidly evolving. I think there's a, there's a very volatile landscape there, so we'll see what happens, but that's probably one of the things that scares me the most.

[01:02:33] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[01:02:34] Justin Keenen: What was yours?

[01:02:37] Jen Kern: Well, I think we touched on mine, I mean, mine is that the being all things to all people and doing bad, honestly, doing unethical or bad business. And so, I see a lot of companies in this space more on the tech side that ju, it just scares me a little bit, there's so much, there's so many widgets now out there, and it's gotten so crowded and competitive and just doing the right thing has become kind of an afterthought, and maybe I'm just opinionated about that because I've, I've heard some of the stories, you know.

[01:03:14] Justin Keenen: I have some for you.

[01:03:16] Jen Kern: Yeah. I mean, I've heard 'em from people like you, and the, you know, the buyers on, on, on the restaurant side have told me stories of getting burned and being sold something that wasn't true. Um, and so that scares me a little bit because, you know, like I mentioned earlier, I think we have a responsibility to educate and to guide and lead, and help people understand the power that technology can provide, but also the limitations.

[01:03:39] Like, nothing can do everything. There's no panacea, there's no silver bullet here, right? Like, be real, be real.

[01:03:48] Justin Keenen: Yeah. So, that's, that's a different approach than I was thinking about, but yes, absolutely. I have learned over my, you know, many years that, you know, you don't have to be ethical to be in business, it's not a requirement, you know, yet, legal, sure, but ethical, you know, there's a great lot, pretty big gray area, and I see it a lot in the industry.

[01:04:07] I see a lot of people being taken advantage of, you know, small-time operators, you know, mom-and-pop's, SMBs getting taken advantage of, um, all sorts of things, you know, there's, a lot of people think that fake it til you make it is a, like legit rule, like, just fake it, like, just lie, you know, and just pretend.

[01:04:26] And it just, yeah, it does bother me. I've got, I got pretty good fighting sense on that, I've actually, you know, worked in some scenarios where I got to kind of see behind the scenes and some of that. So, I always am keeping my eye out and, you know, I, I guess I'm, I'm also make myself very available as a reference to anyone, any of my peers, anyone watching this podcast.

[01:04:47] Justin Keenen: If you ever wanna know kind of like the real dirt on some things, I'll tell you, or I'll tell you I don't know, or I'll tell you, I'll point you to someone that does know, um, but yeah, absolutely, there's some, there's some even very specific people and, and, and companies in this space that, that do scare me.

[01:05:04] Well, on a brighter note,

[01:05:06] Justin Keenen: Yes.

[01:05:07] Jen Kern: as we wrap

[01:05:09] Justin Keenen: There's some great ones too, yeah.

[01:05:11] Jen Kern: Yeah, absolutely. Always, always, always. What advice do you have to, um, to CTOs in this space? Rising CTOs, current CTOs, like, what would you say? I mean, you've given good advice all along, but

[01:05:24] Justin Keenen: Yeah.

[01:05:25] Jen Kern: as, as a wrap, like, parting words?

[01:05:28] Justin Keenen: Yeah, don't be afraid. Move fast. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a CEO that I work for who is just a genius, super insightful person, but he said to me like, "There's a lot of it, guys, but there's not a lot of IT guys that can move the football." So, really being able to keep things moving it's my number one goal.

[01:05:47] I've taken that to heart. I've been fairly successful, I mean, it's, it's not easy, that is not an easy challenge when you have, you know, that 18-month lead time I was talking about from ideation to contracts to all that kinda stuff, that's hard, you gotta shorten that period as much as possible. And 'cause, you know, like, like if CEO says, "Hey, we should do this." That means he wants to do it now.

[01:06:07] It doesn't mean he wants to do it in 18 months or 24 months. And by the time your train's left, the station he's already in, wants to go to a different destination. So, the most important thing for IT, I think, is to move the football, keep things moving, you know, limited excuses, cut those chains, legacy stuff,

[01:06:22] don't be afraid to burn things down. A modern POS platform takes, like, no time to train on, like, it, it's, you can set up a cloud-based POS on a back counter, let 'em play with it for two weeks, move it to the front counter, and you can go, like, it's not, it's hard as you think it is, stop making it that hard. And that's gonna get you, like, kind of in the, in the moment, right?

[01:06:42] It's gonna make sure that, you know, it's one thing to bring tech in the center, it's another thing to bring it to the center and not, you know, not, not succeed, right, or not, uh, not keep it moving, uh, you know, 'cause that's the, the business will move. So, you're centered there, the business keeps moving, you're, you're no longer in the center, you're back to where you were stuck.

[01:07:00] I see that often. I see most CTOs kind of, the larger you go, the harder it gets and the, for them to change, but this is change time, this is, like, this is the time of rapid evolution, it's no longer acceptable to have, you know, platforms that are over five years old, I'd say, or seven years old.

[01:07:19] If you have a platform that old, it's, it's got inherent security risks, inherent management risk, whatever it is, it's time to, like, modern up.

[01:07:28] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm. Mic drop. It's go time.

[01:07:31] Justin Keenen: It's go, no, that's, and that's real, that's real, I mean, that's, that's, you know, the Covid was the thing, right? Covid, the pandemic was like, "Oh shit, let's go, we gotta do all this stuff." I was, I, I think I was lucky 'cause I had planned on many of the things we needed to implement in Covid long before, so I got lucky on that because I had really good leadership with good vision.

[01:07:50] And so, that was, that was, I was able to do that, but that's one thing, that was survivability, that was, like, you know, surviving, like that was, like, react to survive or, you know, survive or die, that was, that was the choices you were making. Those choices still stand, but they're much more, like, long term also just as imminent without the pandemic.

[01:08:10] Justin Keenen: It's, it's more of a competitive nature or more of whatever, but this is it, this is time and, and I saw that at FSTec, this is the first year, like, FSTec is typically, you know, the big brands go up there, and they talk about what they're doing, and it's like, yeah, great, I, you know, this is not innovative, right?

[01:08:28] It's not innovation what they're doing. They're doing stuff they should have been doing two, three years ago and, and what other industries did ten years ago. Um, but, you know, this is the first year that I felt like there was a buzz and excitement from the brand side of like, "Okay, we're actually ready to do stuff."

[01:08:44] Like, this is like, it's no longer like a, "Hey, let's go look at the, you know, shiny objects, let's see what's out there, like, you know, let's go talk and pretend like we're rock stars and get taken out to dinner and all that kinda stuff." You do a confer, this was like, I think they were really, truly interested in what can get them to the next level, um, and that, that, that is definitely exciting. I think it's about time. And it's time to move the football faster, right? 'Cause the longer you take to move that football, the more the other, you know, other teams are gonna score on you.

[01:09:10] That's it, get, get going, don't lollygag, like, don't be afraid to burn stuff down, you know, and just do it.

[01:09:20] Jen Kern: I love it. Lollygag. I haven't heard that, that word in a while. One of my favorites.

[01:09:24] Justin Keenen: Yeah. I mean, the prioritization 

[01:09:26] Jen Kern: Don’t be a lollygagger. Don't be a lolly, can we name the episode "Don't be a lollygagger?"

[01:09:29] Justin Keenen: I, we're, okay.

[01:09:31] Jen Kern: I love it. I love it.

[01:09:33] Justin Keenen: It's always this thing where, you know, IT guys have this prioritization list, and then they say, "Well, we wanna prioritize this." Okay. Then you say, "Well, what'll drop off this list?" Right? I mean, you should know that pretty obviously, if there's something you're working on your priority list, that's not, like, driving these, these business values we're talking about, or not getting you adopted,

[01:09:50] that happens a lot actually. You put something in and, like, people aren't excited about it, they just kinda like, "Yeah, okay, this is something corporate pull us, we gotta do." Just do it yourself. Drop start, start dropping stuff and be reactive, don't ignore your stakeholders, right? Get stuff done for them too, but make sure that the business first.

[01:10:07] Jen Kern: Yeah. Yeah. Such a great way to wrap because you've been saying these things all along, like, stay agile, it's time to go, you know, be fearless, burn stuff down, love how you keep saying, like, burn it down, if it's not working, burn it down, throw it out, that's like whole agile, like, fail forward fast,

[01:10:23] like, burn it down, rip it out, try something else, like, these are all such, such great reminders and advice, I think, to, to folks in the space and, and critical for reinventing restaurants.

[01:10:34] Justin Keenen: It's true. It's really easier to do in a startup, so that's why I'm doing it, and that's why I'm hoping to, like, encourage and inspire others to do it. It, it makes, makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways.

[01:10:44] Jen Kern: Well, I'm so excited to talk to you today and to, to watch your journey with Hart House. I know it's gonna be fabulous, and they've got you. So, they're, they're a step ahead. But thank you so much for coming on and, and sharing all of your, your wisdom and insight, and experience, and wish you all the best.

[01:11:03] Justin Keenen: Thank you, yeah, you too, and any time, I'm always happy to talk, personally or, or another episode on different topics, anyone that's listening, I'm available for, you know, anything you wanna, you wanna bounce some ideas off me or have a conversation, just let me know.

[01:11:17] Jen Kern: Awesome. Where do people reach you? LinkedIn, or what's your go-to?

[01:11:20] Justin Keenen: Yeah, LinkedIn's probably the easiest way. Sure.

[01:11:22] Jen Kern: LinkedIn. Okay. LinkedIn. Thank you so much, Justin. Hope you have an awesome day and stay remarkable over there at Hart House.

[01:11:29] Justin Keenen: Thanks, Jen.