#26 - Matt Pool: Building a Community Culture Beyond Business Doors

Welcome to the Dining Room Studio.

And it is not too far from...

Did you grow up?

Where did you say you grew up again?

Here, basically.

They moved from Olathe when I was nine.

Yeah, all the way to Lawrence, Kansas.

And then, lately, you've had a pretty busy life.

Yeah, it's been pretty crazy.

Pretty crazy life.

You are currently doing a lot of things from shooting weddings to traveling around the Lawrence community, meeting with a ton of people, and then to closing down a restaurant.

So, how's it going right now?

Well, for me, personally, ask me at the end of July.

It's, I don't know, I like to call it a beautiful chaos.

So, it's, I don't know, I feel like I was built for this kind of stuff, and I've been told that by many people before that for some reason I can do more than a lot of people have the bandwidth to do, and I don't take that lightly, but I also can put on way too much sometimes as well.

So, but no, so right now, yeah, I'm one of the owners of RPG, Restaurant, Pub, & Games, which is a downtown Lawrence on Mass Street.

And we've been open almost four years, and we announced at the beginning of this month, it will be closing at the end of June.

So, it's been a wild ride.

And we opened up six months before the global pandemic.

And basically, I've been fighting to try and make the business model work ever since then.

And we are celebrating in a lot of ways of having success in our mission.

Our mission has been to build community, and to create a space for that.

And so, we're using June to celebrate success in the mission and close the business.

So, yeah.

Let's start with the mission.

What made you all pick that as your mission?

Yeah.

So, the four of us primary owners were all believers.

And so, we have worked on a few other projects before.

And we have kind of had a heart ourselves that whenever we worked together and whenever we started talking about this business model was to seek the welfare of our city.

And that's out of Jeremiah.

And so, to seek the welfare of our city and to figure out what it meant to seek the welfare of Lawrence, Kansas, for us personally, the four of us owners.

And so then we had a couple of friends of mine who had found out that I had played Dungeons & Dragons in high school and some in college as well.

And I hadn't played it in many years and they were like, let's do a game, let's do a game.

And started a game and played it one time one night and we're still playing it today.

Wow, the same campaign.

Not the same campaign.

We've had different people.

Lead.

Lead, yeah.

But same group of friends and still playing.

And so when we started that process, Nate, who's been my best friend for over a decade, he was the best man at my wedding, turned to me and was like, so this is like so much more, there's so much more to this than just playing a game.

Like there is a social dynamic, there's community being built here, there's exploration of ideas and thoughts.

Is there a way that we can do something here in Lawrence?

Because he had seen a business model in New York that was basically the Dungeons & Dragons bar.

And so we did a whole lot of market research and found out that the board game industry was just exploding and still continues to explode and decided to expand into that.

But the goal behind it was to have a place to build a community.

So if we're seeking the welfare of our city, and prior to the pandemic, we were already aware of this disconnect that we have, that people have, just getting kind of trapped in our own social bubbles and not really talking to each other and not really having face-to-face interactions.

And so we wanted to develop a place that wasn't necessarily geared towards the hobbyists, the people that already have a major love of board games or things like that.

But we wanted to create a space where anyone could come in and feel safe, feel comfortable, and be able to enjoy good food, good drink, and good games.

And so that's how we opened in fall 2019, and it was immensely successful.

We had done a few pop-ups prior to that as well.

And we had the largest one we did was at Aben Jakes, and we had over 500 people come to that event.

And so we had a lot of community support before we even opened our doors.

And I have continued to have that support that has not gone away.

And so that's kind of been the driving forces to create a space where it didn't really matter what your background was, but you could come in.

And there's three things it's kind of hard to argue about, which is food, drink, and games.

And everybody likes connecting over food and games.

It's oftentimes we can feel weird connecting face to face, whenever you're side by side, and you have the same thing you're focusing on.

And then after a while you're like, oh wait, I've been actually getting to know you too.

Ooh, this is a sneaky way for like relationship building.

But that's whenever I saw your message you had written about how you were closing down, one of the things that struck me was the use of the word community.

And that's been something that's been on my heart.

And that was the impetus of creating the podcast was, what could I do with the skills and talents and opportunities to help others get into community?

So whenever I see you all creating a space that's actually bringing people together, like physically bringing people together in the same space and letting that all happen, I was like, whoa, what was opening day like?

I mean, opening day was chaos.

So it's, and that's typical for a restaurant, but I feel like for us, we had so many, I mean, we had to line out the door.

At that point when we did a ribbon cutting the same day, the Chamber of Commerce said it was the largest ribbon cutting they've ever seen in terms of attendance.

And we had tons of stuff go wrong that no one will ever know about.

But then we had so much go right in the sense that what we were offering was exactly, it was clear what the community wanted, what the community needed.

And so, yeah, I don't know, it was a visceral experience.

I have a friend, he just opened a coffee shop and then I watched the video of the ribbon cutting.

And you stand there and they, boom, they chop it and they, do they let you keep the ribbon?

You can if you want.

I mean, it's just a big piece of ribbon.

Like, it's nothing special about it.

Oftentimes in the pictures, they'll kind of crop it out, but literally there's people holding it on either end.

It's not like it's attached to something where you can't get through or something like that.

They just unroll it and you get the big scissors.

You can't keep the scissors.

That's the one thing you can't keep.

They don't let you keep the scissors.

And then once you opened, though, you had mentioned a statistic with me and it was the first six months of opening a restaurant.

Oftentimes, you have to throw that information out the window, right?

Right, yeah.

Any expert in the restaurant industry will say when you're opening a restaurant to basically ignore the first six months of data because that data is, you've just opened, people are just finding you, you're kind of getting your feet wet at the same time.

So when it comes to your labor numbers but also your sales numbers and all that kind of stuff, you should basically ignore it because you're not really established yet.

Yeah.

But you're picking up steam six months in.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

We were, so by the, so six months was early March for us and then early March we sat down and had a meeting and crunched all of our numbers and had found that we were gonna be profitable by July.

Big time, yeah.

So again, restaurant industry, three to five years is what they recommend for you to plan for before you reach profitability.

And so either when you're opening a restaurant, you either have really, really deep wallets, which we did not, or you have a really aggressive business plan, which we did.

And so we were on track to be, within nine months, fully profitable as a restaurant, which is kind of unheard of in the industry.

But a week or two later in March, we were closed, right?

As every other restaurant and bar was and all that.

So are you just like hanging out at the restaurant and then you get a text or you see something on the news?

Like how does that information get to you that, okay, something's changing?

Well, so first off, like Lawrence in general wasn't like the first place to start closing down, right?

It was happening nationwide, right?

Places were choosing to close down.

And there had not been any kind of like statement like statewide or citywide or countywide yet that there was a requirement to have it happen.

So we were one of the few that actually chose to close prior to any formal and official announcement.

It was just a couple of days before, but we did choose to close early.

Again, with the intent of us specifically being built on community, being built on this.

And at the same time too, especially in downtown Lawrence, all of us restaurant owners got to know each other really, really well.

A lot of us have become good friends.

And so we were talking to each other and we're like, well, this is just a couple of weeks.

Everyone's thinking we'll be open April 1st.

I mean, like, okay, maybe now it's May 1st, but like we'll be okay.

I mean, everyone's having those conversations, right?

Like, so we were doing it because, again, if we're seeking the welfare of the city, and the majority of the city was saying we need to be taking these precautions, then we were gonna, okay, we're gonna take care of our city and prioritize that.

And so, yeah, we did.

So we shut down.

And then, you know, months went by and then we got to reopen in June again.

But when we reopened in June, it had to be at less than half capacity and social distancing and all that kind of stuff.

And again, when our focus is bringing people together at a table, face-to-face interactions among strangers, you know, the business model didn't quite work for the last few years.

And like D&D with the mask on and it changes things, right?

Man, so that obviously D&D and some of those events, because we did Trivia Nights and a lot of other events like that, some of those came back later.

We didn't necessarily bring those back right away.

But when we did, there was a lot of, we had organizers from the community that have helped us run some of these things.

And D&D is one of them.

And so David, the guy, we had so many times when I was taking them out to lunch or dinner or whatever, and we were talking about how are we gonna logistically handle this to make sure everyone feels safe, right?

And feels like they can come in and have this kind of an interaction.

And so there were a lot of decisions that were made in that sense, but specifically for Dungeons & Dragons, they asked to have it be a proof of vaccination.

And so while we never required that for the restaurant or anything else like that, that was something we did do for that one specific event, because again, we have community organizers that are running this and they're requesting it.

And again, if we're here to support the community, we're gonna make that kind of a decision.

So that lasted a while in that regard, and that's what brought that event back, because people then knew they were safe, right?

They can come in and they could feel safe.

And so, yeah, so that was a big piece of that.

I know that there's a lot of opinions on that.

But again, our focus was making sure we were taking care of our people and making sure they felt comfortable and safe.

It didn't really have to do with how we felt.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Particularly, like you said, community focused.

So the individual, it's the community over the individual, and oftentimes that can be hard too, because there's the individual in the community and has this always been personally for you something you're interested in is like a community focus or did something happen to make you a bit more like knowledgeable of the community?

Like, what's that process look like for you?

Yeah, well, each of us for for owners can tell you a different story, but my story.

So I was, I grew up in Lawrence and was the first class to go through Free State when it was built, and then had a scholarship to University of Kansas for vocal performance.

And then as a young 20 year old, made the smart decision to drop out.

And then joined the military, came back from deployment with the GI Bill, and basically went back to KU and said, okay, so here's my credits.

What's the fastest way to get a piece of paper?

And they said theater.

And I said, awesome, great.

And so I went on with the attitude of getting that piece of paper.

And I saw another two and a half years left to complete.

And in that process, became more involved in Lawrence and the community in general, and also in my church in other ways, but then started discovering different types of theater, different forms of theater that were like, impacting the way people were having cultural conversations.

And so there were some pretty major influencers, like Augusto Boal and Paulo, or Paul Freire, same as his name, right?

But they're not necessarily, I don't necessarily agree with every single opinion that they have about a lot of things.

But with the ideas that they were implementing in terms of utilizing theaters as a form to create cultural conversations across dividing lines.

So I actually ended up graduating with a degree from KU in theater, culture, and society, and specifically emphasizing on how theater was used to influence culture and society throughout.

And then my final piece for my degree was directing a show at the lead center, or the lead center, at the art center.

I wish it would be the lead center, at the art center, called The Wrestling Season.

And it was dealing with this, basically, high schoolers and their issues and whatnot.

And then the second half, it's an hour and a half performance, but the first 45 minutes is a traditional performance.

The second half is entirely interactive.

And so it is built to where the cast of, I believe it's eight, it's now been a decade since I did the show, but I believe it's eight cast members, will stay in character, and the audience then gets to interact with them.

And so it starts off with just asking basic questions, like, so why did you react this way when she did this, right?

And then that character, that actor will, in character, respond with the answer of why they reacted that way.

And so a big part of our rehearsals was not just memorizing lines and knowing where to stand and how to say this and how to do that, but it's also practicing every question that could come out, you know, from an audience member.

Living that character.

Living that character and being that character.

And so there are other things that the audience could do as well.

They could put the order of the character and rank them from what they thought the most good character was versus the most bad character, and then describe the reasonings why they ranked them.

And then someone else could come down and rearrange them and say, this is why I feel it's different.

Right?

And so the way the show worked was that by the end of it, hopefully if all goes well, the audience is no longer talking to the characters, but they're talking to each other, right?

And so, and we had that happen a couple of the nights that we did it where by the end of it, like we're not even there anymore, right?

The cast isn't even there anymore, but now the audience is just talking.

So like, this is the experience that I had in high school or I can see why this character would have done it this way, but you're saying this, this, this, this.

Yeah, I'm saying that because of this and this and this.

Oh, that makes a whole lot of sense.

Now, but you over here, you were saying, and now they're just talking to each other and it's cross-culturally, it's cross-culturally.

I mean, like there's no social, economic, who knows where these people are coming from, right?

And they're talking about these like issues that are, you know, societal issues and all that kind of stuff.

And so anyway, so from that, I attempted to create a theater troupe and I was working with the Lead Center and a few other organizations locally to try and make that work, but ultimately couldn't figure out how to make money.

So I had to go get a real job.

And so then I went into IT, ironically.

And so I did IT work for a number of years, worked for a major logistics company out in Olathe.

And then at that point, we were trying to figure out again how to seek the welfare of our city.

And this idea of, you know, creating cultural conversations, how to cross barriers and get people talking to each other that would normally be talking to each other.

And how do we do that?

And so for me personally, that was my motivation was I saw, I mean, I saw the need in 2010, you know, that we were losing the ability to talk to each other and be comfortable agreeing to disagree, you know, and these types of important things.

And we were creating our own bubbles in a sense that we would just kind of live in and hang out in and feel comfortable in.

And so anyway, that was my own personal motivation, and it continues to be, you know, for why RPG is what it is and why we built that and why I quit a very comfortable IT job right before a global pandemic.

So yeah, so.

When you were in IT, were you feeling like, what am I doing here?

Or were you like pretty like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be here.

Like, what was that like?

So IT had been a hobby.

I was rooting phones and modding phones and building computers in my spare time.

And basically a friend of mine was like, hey, you ever thought about doing this for a living?

And I was like, yeah, sure.

Yeah, okay, let's try it.

And so he got me my first job.

And by the time I was done, I was the senior director of something, whatever, something, whatever.

But basically working with the coders on the backend of the custom software the team was using.

And then helping the front end team support the rest of the company.

But I still felt that that job, it wasn't on what I was doing here.

I loved it.

And it was a hobby turned into a career, in a sense, for what that was.

But it was still, I loved it because it wasn't just, I'm gonna go fix this person's mouse or I'm gonna help this person understand why the code changed and now the system works this way versus this way.

It was an opportunity to be able to actually teach and explain.

And you know what I mean?

And be able to say, hey, you know what?

Because IT, almost every IT position is still a customer service position.

It's very customer service.

And so it's making sure that whoever it is, whether it's the business or individual client or your dad or mom or whatever.

So it's still, let's get it done.

And if I could educate at the same time to be like, hey, this is the reason why, right?

Or hey, next time you can do this or you have an opportunity to do this and create an environment in which they felt comfortable like dealing with IT issues on their own.

Like that was my goal.

And that's the reason why I was even able to work to the position that I had at the end was because I made everyone else do their own support by the end of it.

They were fixing, they knew how to replace the battery in their mouse better than I did.

You trained everybody up.

Yeah, I remember.

And I asked like, what am I doing here?

Like IT is an awesome career, but I remember with my former position, I was doing healthcare technology and I'd be at a client site in Montana or South Carolina.

And there'd be moments where I'd be working on a program or something and being like, hmm, I wouldn't have predicted this.

I wouldn't have predicted I'd be at a client site working on healthcare IT.

And now whenever I'm doing things like podcasting or writing the newsletter or doing like really community focused work, that makes sense to me.

Yet I still wouldn't consider those years as a waste.

You know, it was because it was cool.

And hearing your background and how you love to like development and develop people into community, it makes sense that you'd view IT through that development side of the house rather than Xs or what?

Zs and ones, right?

Fuses and batteries, it's development.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and so that's been my position with the restaurant as well.

So my formal title is VP of Development and Marketing.

But on the ground, what does that mean, right?

On the ground, my job was always the direct line of support to our staff, right?

And so we have a general manager, assistant manager, bar manager, chef, event coordinator, and then all the shift managers, and then our staff underneath that as well.

But my job was to make sure that when they needed something, they had that, whatever that was they needed.

And so right now, the focus is making sure that they have what they need for what's coming next in their own lives.

So whenever we brought anyone on, and I don't think we originally talked about this because when we reopened, we changed a lot of how we operated as a business.

There's this book called The Great Game of Business, which I really recommend reading if you run a business of your own.

But it's a, basically it's a way of creating a culture in which your staff actually cares about what it is you're doing and wants to be a part of the success in the business because the success in the business is their own success as well, right?

And so we were one of the first restaurants to go to a $15 an hour minimum wage.

And then we taught our staff how to read profit and loss reports and the cash flow worksheet and bank statements and all that kind of stuff to understand where we were.

We trained all of our staff on how to do that.

And then they also set their own quarterly and annual bonuses as well.

And that is something that, of course, we guided them to make sure they were not necessarily the easiest things to reach.

But yeah, we did all that.

And then the pieces of the puzzle were basically like, so we were teaching them, okay, this is how the business runs.

But we were at the same time also making sure that they had what they needed to run, so to speak.

So that if whatever they needed, like there were times where, I mean, like the restaurant industry is draining, incredibly draining, without a global pandemic.

It's incredibly draining.

There are tons of people out there that just have no respect for people in the service industry whatsoever.

And it doesn't matter if it's a Friday night at 7.30, you know, you have a party of 10, you wanna go be seated, please make a reservation.

Please go make a reservation.

Yeah.

But, and so there's a lot of times where they would be stressed and overwhelmed and, you know, need their own, you know, mental health breaks and some of these things, just to be able to come back to it.

And we fought hard to make sure that they had what they needed in that capacity.

And it wasn't perfect.

Again, we're a small, you know, family-owned restaurant.

We don't have all the money in the world, but we fought hard to do that.

And so something we told all of our staff, at each of our quarterly meetings that we had with them, when we were walking through our PNLs and all that stuff was that we would love to, you know, have you hang out with us for the next five years, 10 years, however long you want to be around.

But we know that most of you will probably move on to the next thing.

Whatever you need to get to where you're going, let us know.

And if we can, we'll figure out how to get that for you and get that.

So right now, the conversation with our staff is, for me, is because I am a professional photographer as well, is if they need headshots, I'm getting them headshots.

We're helping them rebuild resumes if they need to, course reference letters, all that kind of stuff.

And then we're making sure too that we're talking to the other restaurant owners and hospitality industry owners in the area that we know and we trust and we respect if they're hiring to try and get our staff there as well.

And so that's a big part of my focus right now is not just all the logistics of closing down the restaurant, but making sure that, I mean, at the beginning of June, we told all of our staff we're firing them at the end of June, right?

Amazingly, all of our staff has decided to stick out, stick it out with us until the end of June.

But I think that's so much of the culture that we created within the restaurant, right?

And so we have the culture that's created within the restaurant and then we have the culture that the community has then built around that at the same time.

I think they've seen that, right?

Because we've had, I don't know, we've had so many of our customers, of our guests be supportive of our staff when our staff's dealing with tough times.

You know, like there's a sense of ownership, even with like a big portion of our customer base.

And so I think that's just something that, I don't know, I don't want to say you don't see it, because you do see it.

And I know others, even Lawrence that are treating their staff really well and really right.

But it's just something that in the industry, you don't see often, I guess I should say.

A lot of times, it's just considered an industry where you're just gonna be abused.

You know what I mean?

Service industry.

I was a server at Red Lobster for a little bit.

And man, I have dropped so many glasses on accident.

I'm sorry for all those who I dropped some.

There was this one story and I was 19 at the time.

I hadn't drank.

I drank alcohol first time when I was like 24, but I was 19 at the time.

I never drank before and I was waiting on a table and they ordered a lot of wine.

So I went and I got all of this wine on one of those big trays, right?

And I got to the table and I was looking and I was like, oh my gosh, these all look the same.

I don't know what's what.

So I had to go back to the bartender and she told me like, okay, this is the Merlot, the Cabernet, all that.

So then I walk it back and I get to the table and I'm like thinking, okay, okay, one, two, three.

And as I'm setting it all down, I spill the wine everywhere.

Yeah, and it's like red wine.

Yeah, and I was so like, oh gosh.

But it gives me anxiety now whenever I'm going to restaurants and I see really big tables being set because I'm like extra patient with the server, right?

Because I've been there.

And I've thought about all of the, oh my gosh, there's your drinks, but then your salad, and then you want salt, and then do you really want ketchup with the surprise?

Yeah, you probably do.

And you're gonna modify this and this and this and this.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what's funny?

It's something that kinda gives me anxiety.

And my wife gives me a hard time for it.

She's like, hey, just let them do their thing.

Is when the servers are so good that they can take the order without writing anything down.

Like in my head, I'm like so impressed.

But the same time, I'm like, are you sure you're gonna get that?

Have they failed you yet?

They've never failed me.

Exactly.

So like, shout out to them.

It's really cool to be able to see that.

But the service industry and hearing the culture you set up, and just so I captured it correctly, you opened up your books to everybody.

Like from the kitchen to the front of house.

To the person that started last week.

Yeah.

Wow.

So they could see all of the profit and loss.

And then they set individual goals for themselves.

What would be like an example of a goal for like a cook?

Yeah.

Well, so the way we, they had some guidelines when they were setting up their goals.

It couldn't be individual.

It couldn't even be, they couldn't be goals that were based on their area.

So like it couldn't be a goal that only the cooks could achieve, right?

It had to be a restaurant-wide, like everyone's fighting for this goal.

So, and again, you know, it very simply a goal could be increased revenue 5% over the next quarter, right?

Very simply like that.

Or it could be, you know, work together to create happy hour specials from the kitchen and the bar that would increase our happy hour sales this much or whatever it is, right?

And then so that's holistic in the sense that, you know, the kitchen is having to create new dishes.

The bar's having to work on new ideas and dishes.

But then again, the front of house is also all having to make sure that they're telling the customers about it and they're, you know, making sure they're informing people, upselling, all that kind of stuff.

So they set those goals, and that was kind of the, there were a couple other parameters, but the main parameter was that whatever the goals were, it couldn't just be only done by one department.

It had to be everyone was working towards those goals.

So, yeah.

And then you had mentioned $15 an hour.

Yeah.

So you, we were talking previously and you said that you and BurgerStand both did it, right?

Yep, BurgerStand, so Cody and Simon, we've got to know decently well, but they, we found, I mean, like, it's not a quick conversation.

You don't just go, oh, you know what?

Next week, let's start paying everyone $15 an hour, right?

And so we've been talking for, weeks if not months at that point about what that would look like logistically.

And they literally announced that they were doing it like maybe three days or four days before we did, which meant we were just having the same conversations, right?

Like it, you know.

How odd is that?

Did you talk to them about it prior?

No, we hadn't talked to them about it prior, so.

What were they making before $15 an hour?

So an RPG.

So we, I mean, it was minimum wage, restaurant wages.

So servers were getting to 13.

I don't even know what it is anymore.

I haven't paid that wage in so long.

Yeah, and you know, whatever the minimum wage is, I can't, I don't even, $15 is my minimum wage in my head.

So I don't know what the actual state numbers are.

But yeah, they were getting minimum, you know.

And when we opened back up, it was like, okay, we're opening up at less than half capacity because of the fact that we have to, the way our restaurant was laid out in order to make sure everyone was socially distant, we were at less than half capacity.

And which of 120 tables, I think we were at, we could go to 40 seats.

I think that's what we had.

And so we have staff that's coming back and now we're gonna pay them to 13 an hour to get what tips?

No one's coming out to restaurants.

You know, I mean, no one's going out to restaurants right now.

And even if they were, we're never gonna have as many people coming out on a Friday night.

We can't even seat them, you know?

So it just came from that, like, what do we do?

What's the logistics behind this?

And so we did a lot of research, you know, just the conversation across the United States has been this idea of what does it look like to create a living wage?

And my personal opinion is that, like, even $15 an hour is not a living wage in 2023, but it's a starting point, you know, it's a starting point.

But I cannot remotely blame any other restaurant for not choosing to do that, because it's, when you're looking at, restaurants are hard to operate and hard to manage, and frankly, I say that in the context of me closing one down, so, like, who am I to say, right?

But, you know, purely because of the structure of our business model is why we closed, and not being able to recover in that sense of this face-to-face interaction, you know, in talking with Explore Lawrence, who's the, like, the visitor's center and the, you know, the tourist, they were saying just a few months back that Lawrence is still at 80, 85% pre-COVID hospitality revenue numbers.

So that's the whole city.

That's hotels, that's restaurants, that's bars, that's, you know, entertainment, all that kind of stuff is still sitting at 80 to 85% of pre-COVID numbers.

And so, so many other places, so many other businesses bounce back so much faster.

And other cities too, just depending on the kind of culture of the city, but Lawrence is still not there in terms of revenue.

And whenever you are deciding on $15 an hour, was this prior to letting everybody see the books or was it?

It was all the same time.

All at the same time, okay.

So June 1st, 2020 is when we were allowed to reopen and we implemented all those things at the same time.

And so the staff that we brought back, we basically, the week before, sat them down and said, okay, so these, this is what's changing, right?

Cause a lot of our staff came back and we said, okay, we know, you know, this is how it went, how it worked.

This is what we're changing.

And of course they were all for it and excited about it and thankful for it.

But like, not all of them were excited about learning how profit and loss sheets work.

They just wanted to do their job, but incentivizing them with bonus structure and the $15 an hour or so.

Paying attention that way.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And so anyway, so they, we, yeah, we sat them all down.

That week of coming back was not only a week of, and so Nate also, who is our president of the four of us owners, he's also a registered nurse, works at LMH.

And so he also had been going by what the hospital had designed.

And so we had, he had written out an entire, this is how we're gonna be handling COVID, right?

And then we had built out, this is how we're gonna be, this is how the, this is basically the new training process, right?

Wow.

And so here it is, we're gonna sit down, crash course, because we're opening June 1, and this is the new normal for RPG and what we're doing moving forward.

So, and it's been, I mean, it's, you know, in the restaurant industry, they tell you six months in, don't expect to see any familiar face from when you hired day one.

Like the turnover is so high and so fast in the restaurant industry.

I think it's like 70, 70 something percent industry wide on an annual basis for turnover.

Last time I checked, I think we were at like 22% year over year turnover.

And we have staff, three or four, maybe even five of our staff that have been with us since day one.

Oh man.

That since the day we opened.

And so, and of course, there are certain management positions now and all that kind of stuff.

But that's, I don't know, it's just, it's humbling to know that the, what we've been fighting to do and building community has been something that our staff has really taken with and ran with in so many ways.

And I think part of it too is just the power of, if you think you really can build community, but you think it's something to strive for, know that it's possible, right?

So so much of what is happening now with RPG is we have all these events that we've built out that they're saying, okay, so like we're talking about potentially moving, like is it possible for us to move this event here so the event still keeps going, right?

Or like, what about this over here?

Is it possible that, or like people are asking if they can hire us out to be able to do trivia in July and August and September and all this kind of stuff.

And so like logistically too, right, at the same time is, okay, so the community is not going anywhere, right?

Like the business is having to close down.

The community is still going, and it's gonna still, it's gonna keep going.

And so that's, again, that's why we're celebrating success in the mission of building community.

But that's part of the conversation too right now.

And so right now, I don't wanna say a whole, whole lot, but we're working with a graphic designer to potentially create a slightly modified logo that could be community use base.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

But that's the idea too is that it's something that could then be continued and carried on beyond the restaurant itself.

So yeah, that's so, so again, ask me in July how I'm doing.

I can't, I can't think about my, my own mental state right now.

So yeah.

Which is understandable.

Yeah.

Because you got a lot going on.

And then we as humans are really good at taking care of other people.

And then at other times it's like, Oh shoot.

Yeah.

You know, whenever we look in the mirror and we start taking stock or self assessment of everything.

But I was struck by that.

And it's the mark of a good culture.

Everything you're saying is the mark for good culture, right?

I was meeting with the director of the Boys & Girls Club here in Lawrence.

And she was talking to some of the kids that went there.

And she asked them this question that really stood out to me.

And she said, Hey, what are your dreams?

And how can the Boys & Girls Club help you get there?

And I was like, that is so cool.

And hearing you articulate that same vision of your staff and being like, Hey, what would you really like to do with your life and with your career?

And how can I help you get there?

Professional headshots are big time.

You know what I mean?

It's hard to get a professional headshot.

I mean, having a means so much, having resume help, having reference letters, connections, all of that.

So the legacy and the perpetuity of what you all have built is really impressive.

And that's why I think a lot of people should invest in community.

Kobe Bryant, I love basketball, and Kobe Bryant said he had this quote, and he was known as being like a loner.

And it's understandable because he grew up and his dad moved to play professional basketball in Italy.

So he was always the oddball in Italy, but then once he finally figured that out and learned the language, then they moved to Philadelphia, and then he had a weird accent in Philadelphia and he didn't know anybody.

And then he goes to the NBA straight out of high school, and it's all adults.

So it makes sense that he was a loner, but he has this quote where people ask him, don't you wish you had more people around you?

And he has this response where he said, well, friendships will come and go, but banners will hang forever, saying like championships.

And I really admire Kobe Bryant's ambition and the Mamba mentality, but I would contest that.

And I would say like friendships and relationships are going to be what maintain us, right?

They're the sustenance of life, and they help us grow and they help us overcome, and they make us more resilient and more bouncy.

We're able to bounce back than we would.

So seeing RPG is a business with staff and then you got connections there, but then people show up and there's people who are there on site like playing D&D or trivia, or I was doing Skip the Small Talk, right?

You're hosting events, and then people will leave RPG, but then continue doing that.

So yeah, the legacy, it's like you can't shut that door.

You know what I mean.

So that's really impressive.

I was like, ooh, really, really encouraged by that because you're doing it.

What do you think about hearing that?

Well, I mean, I'm not so arrogant to think that in five generations, people will know who I was or my name, you know?

But I hope that I'm able to give any kind of an impact on them anyway, you know, in some way and in some form, something that I'm doing now with the short time that I have will be impacting future generations, even, I mean, even I don't need name recognition, right?

So that's, I'm glad to hear that.

It is incredibly humbling.

It's been, that's probably been one of the hardest parts of this is how many people have been like, you don't know how much RPG meant, you know?

Or like, this is like, I can't believe this is happening because you don't understand, like, and so many people that were like, this is the place where I feel like I could call home, you know?

Or this is the place where, and there's no other place like this in the area.

And I had an email from someone the other day that was telling, he's from out of town, and he was emailing me, and he's like, the reason I'm emailing you is because I was telling my friends about how amazing you were because we came, a few of my friends came to Lawrence for a concert a few months back and decided to hang out RPG for lunch, ended up staying there all the way up until the concert, and frankly, the concert was fine, but we can't stop talking about RPG.

And I was literally, we were planning another trip, and I was pulling it up to show my friends, and we saw that you were closing, and I wanted to let you know.

And so there's stories like that, that are just coming out from everywhere, that are just talking about, and some are harder than others because some are like, we're not sure where to go now, or we're not sure where to go next.

And so part of, you know, we're trying to figure out where that is, right?

So we can help people figure out what the next place is, so they can find a similar community.

But a lot of it's just like, you all didn't know how much you were impacting what we were doing and all this kind of stuff.

And so, yeah, it's been humbling.

I bet.

And I have several thoughts hearing that, because one thought I have is, have you ever felt at moments something along the lines of, oh, it would have been nice to hear this sooner?

I mean, there is that.

I mean, again, it's not a would have been nice to hear it sooner.

We have been hearing it.

It's coming out a lot more now.

And we know, we have stories over the years where we can share.

There's a lot of great stories to share about just the impact in working with Bert Nash and other organizations that we've done in the past and just food as well.

But in those, yeah, the struggle right now is the fact that it costs a lot to run a business.

And we had to take out, the short, it's not a, there's no like gossip.

It's a short conversation that we had to take on a whole lot of debt to be able to make it through COVID and never really came back from that.

And so it was a lot of fighting and a lot of strife.

From our staff and from all of us to try and figure out what that looked like and how to make it work.

And the reason why it happened now versus six months from now or six months ago was just there was some other expenses that came up that felt like it was the right time.

But it didn't really change the trajectory that we were continuing to fight, but never really came back.

So I mean, hearing it in the sense, again, it's great to hear it, and I'm glad that we're hearing it.

I don't feel bad about hearing it or knowing the impact we had.

I just, you know, like business, and you'll hear people in business saying, well, business' purpose is to make money.

And I don't feel like that's true.

I mean, a business' purpose is not to make money.

You have a mission, right?

And it's like a car.

The purpose of a car is not to consume gas, right?

The car will not get you to your destination.

It will not complete its mission without gas, right?

You need gas.

But the purpose of the car is not to consume gas.

The purpose of a business is not to make money, right?

But you cannot continue the operation and continue the mission of that business if you don't have money, right?

And so that's ultimately what it came down to, was just, you know, not having the money to be able to continue the mission of the business.

Yeah, I want to hear the stories.

The stories, yeah.

Yeah, I want to hear some of the stories.

We had some of these, my business partner Nate can say better than I, but we had, before we even opened, one of the last pop-ups that we did, we had a dad come up to us and was just like fighting back tears and kind of pointed over to his son.

And he basically was saying that his son, you know, is on the spectrum and he has never seen him more engaged, more talkative, communicative, than he had in his entire life, than he has tonight for what the community that was being offered.

And he was sitting at a table and playing Dungeons & Dragons and having a blast, but he just wanted to, he was just saying thank you, you know, to that.

And then we were invited to a breakfast that Burton Ash was holding.

And we'd never, I mean, we know some, you know, Burton Ash and have donated to them some things in the past and whatnot, but didn't really know why we were invited, but we were like, okay, we'll go and have breakfast.

And then one of the speakers was a woman who had been, or I guess she wasn't one of the speakers, but one of the stories came up, there was a woman that had been nonverbal and through the work that we had been doing with Burton Ash and basically the mental health in board games and the way board games can help mental health, she had become verbal in that process.

And so we were like, okay, I didn't realize we were going to be fighting.

That was incredible.

And so there were a lot of stories that were like that, that we've heard and have come out of that.

The Just Food had been working with the state on a program called Purposeful Plates, which the point there was to, as much as possible, reduce waste coming out of restaurants.

And we were basically the pilot restaurant to help them start that program and get initial data and all that kind of stuff.

And so our staff absolutely loved that we were making them weigh food every 30 minutes and all this stuff.

But it's something that we kept telling our staff because our general manager was very passionate about this.

And she has come back multiple times and said that I've loved working in RPG, but that felt like the most powerful thing I've ever done in my life before in the way I was contributing.

And she took the reins with that and then had the restaurant do it and move forward with it.

And that was something that we told our staff, like, this may not be great, it may not be the best time right now, but realize, too, that when things change across the state of Kansas, when it comes to food waste and all this kind of stuff, know that it started right here.

It started with what we're doing today.

And so, you know, there's just a lot of stuff like that.

Burton Ash again had another program they were doing.

They were meeting with some of their patients at RPG on a weekly basis and conducting some additional research and whatnot.

And they had good feedback on just how that process had gone.

I don't know.

There's a lot of stories.

I can't think of them all at the moment.

I can tell, though.

I can tell that there's way more stories than one you can recollect and then recall in this very moment.

But I have her, I've talked to some different local organizations, and they're like, Oh yeah, RPG donated this and RPG donated that.

Was that always the approach you had?

Were you always looking to give away?

Yeah, so we have had, honestly, that came out of our staff.

So they, in their conversations, not this last year, but the year before that, when they were talking about their bonus structure, one of the things that came to us, they said, can we use RPG to raise money for nonprofits in the community?

Is that something that you all would be comfortable with us potentially doing and could we explore?

And so, you know, we had a conversation about it and was like, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, we'll figure out how to do this and what that looks like.

And so, yeah, so we've been donating to charities month over month and at times and here and there and then doing a lot of silent auction gifts and certain things like that.

But that completely came out of our staff.

Our staff has been the passion and drive behind utilizing the business to raise money for other organizations.

Let's talk about your staff.

So you said you've had a few staff stick around from day one.

How would you describe your staff?

Man, I don't know.

It's going to be really hard not seeing them anymore, not spending time with them anymore.

They have, oh, don't ask me that question, Chris.

So they have a, I don't know, a passion and dedication that, frankly, I've told them they need to stop having because they'll go so far as to be required to be told you need to take a break.

You need to stop, right?

I appreciate this, but it's not worth it.

We're going to be okay.

But they have the, there was some staff pretty quickly post-COVID that caught the new vision of what we were doing and what we were fighting for.

And they have ultimately been the champions and then became our managers and our general manager.

But they understood the fight of striving to be different.

Most of them have worked in the service industry in some capacity.

And most of them, when they realized RPG was operating differently, were like, I want to do this.

I want to be here.

I want to do this.

And we've had staff that have started part-time.

And we kind of made it a new joke in-house in the restaurant that, yeah, give them a couple weeks.

Give them a couple weeks.

They'll put in their notice of their other job and come full-time here.

But that's been the case, too.

Like, we don't have that many or as many part-time staff because once people have started working at RPG, they realized, oh, I want to work here.

I don't want to work anywhere else.

I want to work here.

And so that's been something that we've had.

We've had people from other restaurants that have either had to close or have had special circumstances or things happen that they've ultimately found home at RPG and things like that.

But they, I don't know, our staff, and especially our management team, are so passionate about what RPG is trying to do and what we've been trying to build that, like, I don't know, I wish I could just pay them all substantially more than I'm able to do just because they're worth it.

They're worth every single penny.

And they're absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, kind of a big old check.

Yeah, I wish I could just be like, here you go.

A million bucks each, go live your dreams.

A blank check to everybody.

Yeah, absolutely.

I would put a million, but maybe you need a little more.

What do you need?

What do you need to get where you're going?

I got you.

And they're going somewhere where they...

It's funny, one of the guests I was talking to, she's from Disney World, she did Disney World HR, and they're known for their hiring practices and all that.

And then they're onboarding and training.

And then she went to another company, the company that we were both working for.

And she was like, do they have any training here?

Like she felt very dissatisfied.

And I was talking to her and I was like, do you think maybe your dissatisfaction is because you just came from Disney World?

And she's like, you know what?

I hadn't really thought about it that way, but that's probably it.

And I would hate to say it, but you may have scarred some people.

Right?

Like experiencing certain types of culture and then moving and being like, all right, where do I get that?

I know some people that are not staying in the service industry.

They are intentionally choosing to move on because they've told me that if I don't want to work anywhere else, and so if it's not here, it's nowhere.

I'm going to go do something else now.

Wow.

You've created a few different things.

You created the theater troupe, right?

And then I created an e-commerce company that I tried to take off and didn't work.

And then you got an IT job.

I got a healthcare IT job.

And then you go and you create a restaurant.

And then I'm creating a podcast.

And I just see that entrepreneurial spirit in you.

So where's that headed?

Well, so we're going to go a little more low key, right?

And go into really, really low stakes, no big risks, and just dive into full on wedding photography.

You know, it's a joke.

It's a high pressure.

No big risks at all.

So no, so I've been doing professional photography basically in line with opening the restaurant.

So I had a hobbyist mindset when we opened.

And instead of hiring out, we basically decided to buy me the gear.

And I just have been learning.

And so part of the whole process for this is that I've done all the marketing for the restaurant and all of our photography, and most of our photography.

And so with that, last year was a fight of getting all of us owners, the couple of us that were on payroll, off of payroll entirely, again to help the business and be able to make that a reality.

And so in that process, it was a conversation of what's coming next.

And so all last year was, I've been asked to do some weddings and some other things like that.

And I was like, you know what, we're going to turn this into where I'm going next in my career in a sense, right?

Because we've shifted to a position where we have a staff that can run the restaurant.

So then I'll do this.

And so my wife did the same thing.

She's a birth coach and a doula.

And so that's what she does.

But then I, yeah, so I basically last year launched it into a full-fledged business, even though I've been doing it for four years professionally.

And so, yeah, I have 16 weddings this year and four next year and one in 2025 already.

So yeah, so that's my next thing that I'm doing right now.

So primarily weddings and events, but I also do seniors and families and that kind of stuff.

So you are going photography.

Yeah.

It's like you can't really...

A lot of people who have...

You see them create a lot of different things and then they're like, all right, I'm taking a break.

And you're like, are you though?

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

It's a shift.

I mean, it'll be a shift.

I won't have...

It'll be the first time in almost a decade that I've not been on call 24-7.

Yeah.

I think that will be a shift in a lot of ways because IT and all that.

And then the restaurant constantly needed to be available at 2 a.m.

if there's a fight breaking out or something crazy happening.

And so, yeah, it'll be the first time that I'll have, obviously, clients that I'm available for, but there won't be an emergency.

You know what I mean?

That I need to go, oh no, we need to click, get some photos.

Because this emergency thing happens.

Yeah, exactly.

This is so important.

We need you to come out here.

You do it right now.

Let's go.

Are you looking forward to that?

I think so.

My wife and I have four kids, and they've been graciously understanding as we've had to focus on some of the things.

So I'm looking forward to continuing to, I don't know, just raise them and be with them and spend even more time with them.

We homeschool them as well at the same time.

So it's just being more involved in that and getting to go on more field trips and all that kind of stuff.

So there's a flexibility of time that I am looking forward to in a sense.

But frankly, yeah, I will never not be running some sort of business.

It will always be a thing.

Nate and I, my business partner, we're already in conversations about what's next for the two of us too.

So it won't just be wedding photography for long.

I don't even know what that looks like yet.

We have no idea.

We're still closing a restaurant.

Are we thinking like an abbreviated RPG?

I honestly don't know about that.

It's been a hard four years.

And I think we're looking forward to a break from the service industry.

But maybe someday.

I don't know.

Never say never.

But right now, I don't think that's the next thing for him and I.

There's something else.

There's something else.

And there's always something else.

One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was, we mentioned a few different times, where's the community going to go now?

And I think it's really important to continue to encourage everybody who may, who found community there, that I imagine someone's going to be encouraged by your story, to know that you had a cool line at the beginning.

You were like, if you want to create something and you think you can create community, then more than likely you should go for it, because you could do it.

And I think that it's important to say that again, and as we see communities being built, entrepreneurship is not limited to profit and loss and dollar signs.

Being able to gather people together and build friendships, friendships that sustain you, and you have meaningful interactions, you ask each other questions, you make each other laugh, and then you get fired, and you get to talk about it, you get a job, you get to talk about it, you go on a date, you get to talk about it.

That's what life is for, is living amongst one another.

So seeing what you did, and you, Nate, and the other business owners, like y'all's families, that is something that can be done, because the spirit behind it is to build community.

And I think that's really important for us to mention.

And another thing also is the reason why you built your whole business, and this podcast is being built, is because community matters.

You know?

It's so important.

And you're living it by doing the business.

But yeah, what would you say to the people who are, and we've talked about it tangentially, but like what's your response to people whenever they say, where do we go for the community now?

Yeah.

Well, there's a couple of things from what you said there that I want to kind of talk about, because I think it's important.

First off, community doesn't go away because a building goes away, right?

And so community is people, people choosing to interact with one another and continue to be in the presence of one another.

And so that doesn't have to change no matter where you're at.

You can take that and you can go anywhere with that.

At the same time too, there's a lot of people that have a lot of opinions about how things should be today from how businesses should operate, but from how city government should operate, from how nonprofits should operate, from whatever it may be, right?

And they have a lot of opinions.

But I would say to anyone that is wanting to create any kind of real change, you need to build a community first.

If you're wanting to impact your city, show your city that you're willing to build something impactful.

And I think that that's something, if you want to impact whatever it may be, if you would like to see a positive change in the world that you're living in, be the one that goes and builds it.

Be the one that goes and creates that change, and you cannot do it on your own.

You have to do it in community.

You have to do it with other people.

And so that, I mean, like the connections that we've made out of RPG aren't going anywhere, right?

We've built connections with the city.

We've built connections with Bert Nash and other organizations and all this kind of stuff.

And that's not going anywhere, again, because the business is closed.

We've grown in our own sense of what we can do in the communities that we are individually now a part of, even outside of RPG, but because of RPG, like boards and some of those things.

But there's a sense of, I don't know, continued ownership for those people that are saying, where do I go now and what's next?

And say, well, take the people that you were with and talk to them about where you're going next.

Take the people that you liked spending time with and that you were really enjoying the camaraderie with and then say, hey, where do we go?

Where are we going to take this community to continue it elsewhere?

And if I can be a part of helping you tell you where to go and who to talk to, great.

But if you've appreciated the community that's been built at RPG that you've been a part of, then it's time for you to now take ownership of that community and continue to build it somewhere else.

Community is not reliant on a building.

Community is not reliant on the time of the month of the day or anything.

And you said you'd recommend building the community prior to kind of like starting, or to be able to communicate your intent and your willingness that you do want to make a change.

And how would you recommend people build community?

Well, don't start a restaurant right before a pandemic.

Don't recommend that.

If you know it's coming, you know, give people a heads up.

But no, so how would you do that?

So first off, figure out what the needs are.

If there's a need that seems to be addressed.

So, you know, we can individually think, okay, so here's a need, right?

I think this thing needs to change.

But we should be going to the community we're living in, whether that's our neighborhood or our friend's group or our family or church or whatever it may be, and saying, okay, so what are we seeing needs to be changed and impacted in what way, right?

And so, you know, for us, what it was was the city.

What does the city value and what is the city saying we're needing, you know, like, that we need to move in this direction, we need support in this way.

Mental health was a big, big piece of the puzzle, you know, when we first opened.

And obviously, that's only increased.

But so, again, finding out what that thing is, right, that you want to be impacted in, and then find people that are like-minded in the sense that you're not going to have the skill set to do everything yourself.

You cannot do everything that you're doing.

You know, you were talking about before this, getting additional support even for this, right?

Because it's gonna make things easier and allow you to go to the next level, right?

And so, that's exactly the way it works, is you can't go, any great name that is out there or a person that's out there or whatever it is, they did not get there on their own.

They did not get there on their own.

And so, it's that mindset of, if you wanna make change, I know I'm kinda rambling, I'll try and bring it back.

Oh, you're not rambling, I love it.

If you're trying to make change, you gotta find people that are willing to make that change with you and to go build something that can create that change.

And so then at that point, we talk often in my friend groups about this idea of having cultural currency.

And if you don't have the cultural currency, if you haven't shown to the culture that you're living in that you have skin in the game, that you're willing to spend your blood, sweat, and tears, and money, whatever else it may be, to make that change, please be quiet and sit down.

No offense.

But because there are people out there that are doing that, that are willing to sacrifice it all to fight for change and to fight to continue to build and create within our communities and within our cities and things like that.

And so if you want to create a positive change within the world you're living in, be willing to put forth the work to do it or support those that are, support those that are putting forth the work to do it.

But we can't do it alone.

Man is on an island.

It's not possible to create anything.

And we definitely live in a world where we think it's all about us and it never has been.

Yeah, never has been.

And you mentioned those names, Paolo and Augusto.

Yeah, Paolo Ferreri and Augusto Boal.

They have some very interesting, I'll just put it this way, political ideas.

I do not agree with...

Humanity is nuanced, but their artistic vision of cultural conversations.

And that brings me back to that.

Because you did The Theater Trip because you noticed the disconnect.

And then you did RPG because you found a potential solution to the disconnect.

And boom!

Now you all are connecting and doing a lot of different things and still open.

People can still go.

As you're listening to this right now, you can still go to RPG until June 30th.

So what else?

What did we miss?

What else do you want to say?

I don't know.

I feel like we covered a lot.

I really did cover a lot.

I don't know if I have too much else.

I don't know, just...

I don't know.

It's a little cliché, but be the change.

Be the change.

Good one.

I think you made it up.

I haven't heard that yet.

I was like, I'll take it.

I'll take it, trademarked.

Yeah, that would be awesome if I quoted that too.

And then from here on out, I was like, well, he said it on the podcast.

He said it, so that's right.

I think that's good.

You are being the change.

And I would say if you're listening, go ahead and plug into your GPS, like RPG, you know, and then are you all going to do a big, like grand thing?

Yeah, so Friday the 30th, I mean, like, you know, at this point, our menu is more and more reduced as we're not ordering more, right.

But Friday the 30th, we're going to be doing a big, big blowout.

Everything like crazy discounted, last day celebratory, and all four of us owners will be on site, five o'clock onward, basically, just saying hi to everyone.

So yeah, it's going to be a crazy night, so for sure.

Yeah, so it's going to be all hands on deck, and let's go out with a bang.

Well, I will see you there.

Well, thanks for being here.

Thank you, Chris.

You bet.

And we'll see you next time, folks.