Love & Sandwiches ft. Ike Shehadeh | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 41

0:03What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of Coffees for closers where success is served daily In today's episode, we're going to walk through a journey of an entrepreneur who turned a passion into a massive household brand. Starting from humble beginnings, our guests now boast over 100 locations across the country, from California to Florida and even Saudi Arabia. Get ready to hear from the mastermind behind Ike's Sandwiches. some of the best sandwiches you've ever had in your life the one the only ike first off i never knew ike was real right you a lot of people i i we've met the guy from travis matthew or you know tommy bahama and it's always a fictitious character behind behind the brand but ike is really ike and not only is ike really ike but the logo of ike is ike so it's amazing i got i was like starstruck yesterday like that's that's like that really is hike super cool and it's super cool that you know we we related on a cultural level as well so it's like it just was like it was just destiny that we got to to meet and to hang out and you're super cool and uh you you immediately agreed to come to the show and i was just you know i'm i'm truly honored i'm blessed to have you here so thank you for for popping in i appreciate you having me you're welcome thank you thank you um now many people want to know uh where did the vision of ike sandwiches start like how did you start this whole thing well which part because as you know with any journey it's what part do you want to know about um well before i dive into the vision of ike i like to start every every podcast with the same question um what is ike's morning routine my morning routine oh man so 90 of the time maybe even more.

2:03I look at the clock and I set my alarm for eight hours after whatever the time on the clock is before I go to bed. So I set it for eight hours. Guaranteed. So you sleep eight hours. Doesn't matter. I'm, I'm blessed in that unless I schedule something, I don't have to be anywhere at any time. So that's the first thing. Let's say 90 % of the time this morning I had a shoot with David Melzer and that had a specific call time. And unfortunately for me, it wasn't eight hours from when I went to bed. So, but for the most part, I could do however I want to do it. Then I wake up, make sure there isn't any emergencies on my phone.

2:40Usually the emergencies are on emergency breakthrough. So I will have been awoken if there was. Do you have an emergency breakthrough on your phone? Yeah. Some people can, some people have access to me, even if my phone's off. I mean, I think it's a common thing, right? Emergency breakthrough. And then after that, I do a morning. My morning routine is I do 50 burpees, 50 pushups all in a row, 50 burpees and 50 pushups, do some ab work. Is that just your only workout? Do you do additional work now? It depends where I'm at. If I'm by a gym, I'll do that whole workout, but in the gym and then throw some weights around as well.

3:17if i'm in a hotel room like i was this morning it's gonna be push-ups burpees and some lunges and some ab work total like total time 20 minutes maybe 25 if i'm slow or lagging or you know tired or whatever and so i automatically start my day with uh oh i'm like i already won not that doing what i just said is is a huge thing but for me it's i don't have to worry about oh i didn't get a chance to work out yet today yeah it's not the oh i lost track of the day normally i like to do multiple workouts in a day as long as i get the first one out of the way then it kind of there's no pressure on me to do it later and if it the cards are in it i go and do another workout and then after that uh fix myself up i sometimes i gotta shave my head sometimes i gotta shave my face shower you gotta look the part of ike and then if there's nothing for me to go to then i don't go i think then that's when i'm getting in my phone returning texts um that are not emergencies return like get on social media respond to comments there i eat usually between one and three like my first meal so you're intermittent fasting though so you haven't eaten yet not yet oh cool i got meal preps for you once you're done yeah i've had uh some folks were having little samples of this new product they have some beef jerky type thing those are pretty cool i had a package of that i'm excited i i this is my this is my first meal of the day did you have it black all black no this is i got a you had dirty chai and yeah it's a little dirty yeah yeah we have the dirty chai lattes too yeah normally i'm not a caffeine enthusiast just when i was a kid i didn't realize i was addicted and i was like i'm never going to be addicted i'm totally addicted to a lot of other things just caffeine's not one of them love it um so uh so now we'll dive into the vision of ike's so what year did you start ike's open halloween 2007 october 31st 2007 and it stars ike sandwiches that was an original name hasn't changed place uh it was ike's and then we were a full cafe when i first opened we sold at a full espresso bar full like everything whatever you can get in fact i had more than what you could have gotten at a starbucks or a pizza we had this is in 2007 i had rice milk soy milk macadamia nut milk almond milk regular milk low-fat milk non-fat milks i'd open with seven different milks and mainly because i was like well what if you want what if you can't have soy what if you can't have nuts then i had the rice milk what if you and so i just wanted to make sure that anybody that came in would have that.

6:00And then I did breakfast, full breakfast menu, sandwiches, obviously salads, man, you got to bring Ike's place back working on one. I can't say where, cause it's a surprise, but I'm working on one right now. That'll be a sit down version of Ike's with some items. I can talk about the items. The items would be my breakfast menu is coming back. I'll have a specialized coffee menu, but instead, cause I'm not a big caffeine enthusiast i'm gonna do all those i'm gonna have my own mushroom coffee blend so there'll be coffee in there but also the mushroom stuff and then kind of functional elixirs for for breakfast and for say like a instead of a bar it'll be functional elixirs so non-alcoholic but all with functionality that's awesome you might get high off of them but it won't be alcohol and then we'll also have alcohol too for the regular old person that wants alcohol and caffeine for the regular person that wants caffeine yeah well these uh that sounds like that concept in 07 that's just like breakthrough in 2024 2025 so you to do that in 2007 like you're a true visionary as a restaurateur and i don't know where that how did you get that sort of vision for you know a sandwich spot you have the biggest menu in the space like i don't think there's anybody that has a larger menu than there's no not even like in a restaurant a regular restaurant doesn't have cheesecake factory and you see their menu yeah and it's overwhelming for people like you like you just broke it down though and you simplified it but like how did you get so many ideas for sandwiches it all stems from and this is something that anybody can do in whatever their line of work is is it all stemmed from me focusing on what do i like and what's the reason why I was doing it.

7:47So not just what I like, which is food and to eat, but how come. And it was to feed people, to create memories on a table and to be creative in the kitchen. So if you combine all three of those things, for me, I was like, okay, well, I want you to want to come to me for breakfast. I want you to come to me when you don't want breakfast. So you wanted coffee. I want you to come for me when you want lunch. I want you to come to me when you want dinner. and I want you to come in when you want dessert. Or if you don't want any of those things, which is why I'm adding the elixirs at the end. And obviously people drink coffee all times a day.

8:21So it stemmed from that. When I opened up my first Ikes, which was a full cafe, I didn't know, because I didn't have any experience, that you're not supposed to have a million different things and do all these things. I just thought, I can make breakfast. I can make coffee. I can make dessert. I can make salads. I can make sandwiches. So why not do all those things? and in fact all my beginning mentors that were all in the restaurant space that had way more locations than i back then and a lot of them now with 3 000 or so locations they were like what are you doing kind of thing and i'm saying well i just didn't know any better because it was only about feeding people creating memories and being creative so obviously that's going to lend to a longer menu and a larger menu too and so it's all about that whatever it is that you love to do if you only do those things for the reasons that you want to do them and only focus on those whatever those are where there's five reasons five things then it doesn't matter what you do even if it's crazy to do it you're likely going to be successful in that area because well you'll want to do it and you have a why for why you want to do it it's it's incredible that uh you've really managed to bring a whole new element to the sandwich space.

9:37And it's inspirational because you really brought in your vision, which to many people, I'm sure, was contested. People were like, what are you thinking? How did you deal with that backlash? You would explain your vision. Well, I'll say that I learned when I was younger, and by younger I mean 12, 13, 14, that people are going to talk smack about you if you don't do something, and they're going to talk smack about you if you do something. So if they're going to talk smack no matter what, and I would use a cuss word, no matter what, if they're going to do that no matter what, you might as well do stuff.

10:18Because they'll be like, oh, you're a punk, you didn't do it, or you're scared, you didn't, whatever they're going to say. Or if you're going to go do it, you're a clown, you think you're better than everybody. like some people say about me now. So it's the same kinds of criticism. I just, now they say that and I'm doing what I love to do versus the other way, me worrying about what people are going to say and then me not doing what I want to do. So that was the first realization that I had when I was really young. And I'm blessed, I guess. I had a lot of detractors back when I was younger. And then, but when I was specifically to Ikes, when I was like, hey, I'm going to, I took my ideas and I thought to myself, I should open up a cafe.

10:58And I started telling people, say, my family or my friends, oh, that's stupid. Restaurants go out of business. Oh, you should be the best, especially for our culture and probably a lot of cultures. You went to school. You should fill in the blank, whatever you did, or the only approved. Engineer. Basically, engineer. Doctor. Lawyer. Yeah, that's it. That's it. right and so for me i just was like okay well i'm gonna do this because i want to my life up until that point was unsuccessful financially but also unsuccessful uh from a happiness factor like i was doing things that i didn't enjoy doing and i was also not making money so that's probably the worst place to be and probably most people that are listening to this aren't in that space but we know people and we've definitely been in a place where you're not making money and you're not doing what you like to do.

11:51So that's the crappiest life I know possible. That's where I was. And I said, well, okay, if I'm not going to make money, if everybody is right, and it's not going to be successful, at least I'm going to be doing what I like to do, which is better if I'm not going to make money. I'd rather do what I want to do and not make money than do what I don't want to do and not make money. So I just stopped talking about it. If I knew that so-and-so family member or so-and-so friend is going to be like, oh, that's a dumb idea. After they said it one time, I just shut up. I had prominent family members of mine give me a call.

12:26I ended up in the newspaper like four or five months in to Ike's, maybe six. Lots of newspapers, lots of articles. Hey, I read about this. That's you? When did you do? Why did you open up? When did this happen? And I was just like, remember I told you, say, a year ago I was going to do this, and you said it was dumb? Yeah, that's why I didn't tell you that I did it. so i had very prominent family members and friends that found out about it through the media through social media my gosh you're doing a restaurant and back then it was more like a cafe than a sandwich place and so i was like yeah i did and obviously at that point they weren't talking smack if they're reading about me in the newspaper so then it turned into no i didn't say that you know obviously what'd you go to school for computer science and engineering Oh, wow.

13:15How did your parents take it when you told them, Mom, Dad, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go put everything I have on the table and be an entrepreneur. Well, so my mom was actually the one who gave me the money for the first one, so that's how she responded. That's good. Moms are always the best. And then my dad was like, well. It's Arab dads that have the problem. So not that he had an issue with it. He was just more like, well, are you sure? He wanted me to be smart about it, and I'm thinking it's a freaking restaurant. I don't think there's anything, no offense to anybody, but like if you're getting into the restaurant business and you don't want to do it, that's an idiotic thing no matter how smart you are about it.

13:51And so I figured that out just living my life is the things that I like to do, even in the jobs that I had that I didn't like, I did anyway, even though maybe I wasn't going to be rewarded for it. Often I was rewarded for it. And I was able to link that to, okay, well, if I just do these things, I'll do it. So I was like, oh, I wasn't looking for smart eyes on my project. I'm just going to open up a restaurant and kind of do what I love to do. And I assumed that that is better than doing not what I love for not money. So that's basically my dad. And then my mom was like, here's money. Now, one thing I really want to ask you, because I was actually talking to this with the CEO of Wahoos yesterday.

14:32It's like we're in California. we're dealing with random labor lawsuits, margin compression, insane minimum wage, and you're still delivering deliciousness and variety for a very cheap price. Your sandwiches are very inexpensive. Especially for California. Especially for California. In the Midwest, they're probably the same price, but still very reasonable and a big portion. How are you still able to maintain such profitability and expand and do it at those prices in this current environment with extreme margin compression? It starts with, well, first of all, we're probably seeing less of a percentage of profit.

15:16And actually, I want to talk about this real quick. Often I see, especially on social media and probably on the platform we're talking on right now, so like everybody's at record profits and whatever. Think about it. If I made$1 more than last year and last year was my record, I made record profits. But it sounds like I'm a trillionaire because this company is making record profits and that company is making record profits. Take that out of the equation. Also add in, say, if everybody has a certain percentage they want to make, whatever percentages you want to make, me or I want to make, if everything goes up in price and I'm still only making, say, 8 % or 10 % or even 20%, 20 % of a bigger number is going to be a bigger number just because that's what mathematics is.

16:00but it doesn't mean we're making record profits. It's just what happens when prices go up is everybody makes more. And so I want to take that into like common lexicon, realize what it is when people are framing things. But first of all, I think we're making less as a percentage of profit. But how we're doing it, we've just been doing it for so long that we've been able to negotiate great pricing with our vendors. We've been doing it so long, we have great goodwill with people that they're willing to pay the prices that we're charging. And then the same with the staff. The people really love the product that work with us, so they're able to put out a great product.

16:43And all that put together kind of helps us so that we can expand. So I can open up and see a brand-new city like Houston, which we did a couple years ago, and even Salt Lake City, which we did a couple years ago, Vegas, all these places is where people have heard of Ike's. So it allows us to expand in a less than risky way. It's not guaranteed, though it's less than risky when we open a location in Austin and half of California moved to Austin. So if anything, maybe the bad price is here in California, forced everybody to go to Austin and then they know about Ikes in Austin because they're all Californians, so to speak.

17:18Now, your parents, are they entrepreneurs? Did they run their own business? My father did, yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So at what age did you realize that you're going to be an entrepreneur? So I've been going with my father was in the supermarket business. He owned, I don't know, four to six supermarkets and then got into real estate. But he, like where I saw him work was the supermarkets. And I remember just being sitting on the counter and like watching people count money and like, Oh, that guy is giving my dad money. I want to be like, like, Oh money. I knew I was, young enough to sit on the counter, but little enough to know, oh, that stuff buys me like this toy or whatever it was that was high in my values back then.

17:58And then I started bagging the groceries for my dad and I started, oh, I want to take their money and count the change. And so learning stuff like that. I don't know what age that was, five, six, seven, eight. It's just in the Arab's genes, basically. You're like, I was born an entrepreneur. Essentially. And then one of the other things that saw through my father doing that, because I probably only went in like 5 % of the days that he worked, is that he went every day. He went there when he was sick. He went there when there was good stuff going on. And he went there when there was bad stuff going on.

18:32He went there when there was problems at home. He went there when there was not problems at home. So I learned to show up every single day by watching my father do it as an example. And sure, perhaps like, oh, he had to support his family. Still, people don't show up even in those scenarios where they They complain about it in those scenarios, even though they, quote, have to do it kind of thing. So I learned about that stuff from my father. So you – Watching him work. You would say that the biggest source of inspiration and motivation from you stems from your father and his work ethic? That's where you think you learned it?

19:04Well, that's where I got my work ethic from. I show up to work. The only days I don't go is when I'm doing stuff like this. Although – Well, this is work. It's probably work, right? People hear this and everything like that. This is marketing Ikes. Yeah, I'm often on planes, like three or four a week. And invariably, I'm traveling and the person picks me up like, oh, are you coming? Are you going? We have that conversation. Oh, is it for fun or is it for work? And for me, my work is fun. I wouldn't get on four planes a week and sometimes more if I didn't enjoy doing that. I can delegate the flying on planes part or those things out to someone else if I didn't want to do that.

19:45We're at that position where I don't have to do those if I don't want to. So for me, it's doing it, but also on the days where, oh man, this task needs to be me to be the one to do it, but I don't feel like it or I'm tired or whatever happens, something's going on in my life. I'm just going to go do it because I always feel better after doing something that's uncomfortable instead of waiting and lagging on it or delegating those tasks out that need to be me, which aren't a lot. So for me, it's all of that stuff rolled up through the package of this is what I want to be doing and this is how I want to be doing it.

20:24The reasons why I want to do this and all that in one package becomes, holy crap, you're Ike from Ike's? Like kind of how your reaction was or the other people in this office's reaction was. And that's not what I set out to do. It's just how I'm doing it through all the entrepreneurial and love aspects and inspiration aspects. Yeah, and it does help that the logo is your face. Oh, yeah. So you're asking about the logo. I think that's how we started a long time ago in this part. So eventually I got people who's like, who's like, who's like, and we'd have three hour wait. and people are doing all these things.

21:04I'm running around passing out sandwiches. You had a three-hour wait for Ike's Cafe? The first one, we had three-hour. Within six months, we had three-hour waits. We went viral before being viral was a thing because Instagram didn't exist back then and TikTok certainly didn't exist back then. It was basically Twitter and MySpace. Facebook was kind of coming up. We got social media back when it was the newspaper. I'd be in articles all the time. I'd be doing live TV interviews where it'd be like Jack Dorsey right before me and then me and then someone like Mark Zuckerberg or whatever would be would be one of the guests.

21:40But me being you got to hang out with these people because you're in the Bay and you had the hottest restaurant in the Bay. Yes. So you got to meet everybody in Silicon Valley. Ninety percent of whoever this since that CEO founder or whatever, I have fed them. Yeah, probably even more that I don't even know about. And that's the beautiful thing about being a restaurateur. And you get to hang out with everybody. Everybody eats. Everybody eats. Athletes to the CEO. So you fed Steph Curry. You fed Mark Zuckerberg. You fed everybody who's anybody in the Bay. Anybody who's anybody. And some that I don't even know that I fed.

22:17Yeah. And everybody loves good food. And you have everything under the sun in terms of good food. Yeah. if they eat sandwiches i've fed them in the bay area yeah i think if they've eaten sandwiches most people listen to the show you've fed yeah thank you too for everybody who is a fan of ike's and has eaten it and if you're not a fan i still love you yeah but if you're not a fan and you haven't eaten ike's like yeah you need to try it like yeah go eat there um now let me ask you uh what are some of the hardships the biggest hardships you dealt with when you started hikes so most of the so the first hikes infamously got closed down because we were we didn't have permit for selling sandwiches apparently you need a specific permit to sell sandwiches in that neighborhood in san francisco i'd say from the day i opened till today the number one

23:18issue is the government permitting this this part of the government needs you need this permit you need these kind of things you need these people to say hi yes sounds just like my business so and it's it's i recall and this is way before we were famous and way before the the rest of the government got in and shut us down like the supreme court of california is like don't sell any more sandwiches. That's it. Otherwise you're going to go to jail is that I remember putting up a sign on my window. Cause I got all these permits, like I needed the fire permit. I need all these permits, got all these permits.

23:55They don't talk to each other one. And I remember I had to put a sign. I had to close one day cause I had to go to city hall and get some permit that somebody said that I needed. And back then I was the only one that worked there. So I remember writing a note saying, sorry, the man said I had to go in and get permission to do whatever it was. I don't recall what it was. But I remember putting that on the window, like me being actually upset that it closed my business and walk over there and get whatever something that they wanted me to say that I needed to do to stay open. And that was like the first month I was open.

24:29And I remember crying in my car, like, what the hell is going on? Why can't I just sell sandwiches? And I remember I was just sitting in the car, listening to some music and gathering myself. I had to take the day off because I had to go into the city and get some stuff. And so since that day, literally the first month in until the city shut me down in 2010, until now when I want to open up in this city or that city, the only biggest – I don't want to say the only issue. The biggest issue is please let me open up a sandwich shop in this place. Please, please, pretty please, can we do this? How about this?

25:05Can I get this signature and that signature? That's the number one issue. And I think a lot of times that's going to be a lot for a lot of people. The same exact answer. The biggest issue is going to be the regulation. So it's how you deal with that, how you set yourself up so that whatever it is, it's an issue in your field. Like I'm sure you got a lot of things covered, even though it may take extra time because you have to jump through this or do that. And so setting yourself up so that happens. So you can just go out and do what you love to do or what you want to do. Yeah. I mean, you're in a hyper-regulated space.

25:38And now, how are you dealing with all the regulation as you expand in all the different states? Well, a lot of states are different. And heck, a lot of counties are different. I remember it took us three years to get a permit, two plus years to get a permit in San Francisco because we were a chain now and you needed a conditional use permit. even though i start like to move across the street i wanted to open up across the street and they're like you can't you're a chain what i mean but i'm here i can be here but i can't be over there yes you can't so we had to get a permit that took two years same exact time period i put in a permit to get something in oakland and this was in the 2012 at the time they were small business small business we opened in 45 days after getting the space 45 days or two years it took me two years certain cities just want franchises there states and things like that so now as we're expanding there's some places like no we want people to open so here's some here's some over-the-counter incentives ways to to get up like you just come and be like hey i want to open up the sandwich shop they have somebody there stamp and the thing is they can do that anytime they want with anything that they want literally any any county any city can do that any thing anytime they want with anything that you want you know how do i know that because you're telling me that oakland is that much different than san francisco i can do it in 45 days in oakland but two years in san francisco the answer is no the answer is somebody said you can't do it in san francisco and that's why it took two years you don't even have to use and those cities are really close to each other and then somebody in say in texas you can go right now and get your permit you go like hey i want to open up a sandwich shop on in this address they're like boom why can't they do that everywhere yeah Yeah.

27:21Well, they get the health inspector to come in, get the fire inspector to come in, get the whoever to come in all the health and safety stuff. But we all know that that stuff doesn't take that long. They'll come in and they'll say, yes, this is not a fire hazard go. But it's usually the permission to do things. And I feel like that that is artificially put in place. I use it as a test from the universe, like back then, like, do I really want to do this? If I do, I'll put up with this BS. If not, then I won't. And maybe that's the reason why it is like, not why the cities do it. They do it because they make up that they need to do it.

27:56But I mean, the reason why the universe puts that in front of you, God or Mother Nature, whatever you want to believe in, puts that in front of you is so... What do you say, God, here? Prove to yourself, well, some people might not. I'm down with God. To prove to yourself and God that you want to do it. Because if you're like, oh, man, it's such a pain, I'm not going to do it, then that means you wouldn't have done it anyway. You would have just quit at the first sign of drawback. You'd be like, oh, I don't want to do this anymore. And you'd quit. What is the easiest city you've dealt with so far?

28:29So far? Well, that one in Oakland was pretty easy. Because some cities are just paying you now to just come open business. Because some cities are just totally deprived. And they want chains to come in. There are times where we'll reach out and like, hey, we want to open here. We'll literally message the mayor, the mayor's office. and they're like yes please those have been and that's been i don't want it's been a lot of places like that like probably 20 something places if we hit up the mayor's office and they're like yes please open here what do you need from us yeah and even paying you to come in like we'll front you there's so i i found the city i'm not actually i don't want to talk about smack about the city so there was a city that offered me 300 grand to open up in an area part of the city that they were attempting to economically revive and after looking into it 300 000 you know it's not that's not a joke it was a grant or whatever that you wouldn't have to pay back and i looked at the area and and i go actually if you want me to come here it's going to be more like 750 000 for me to do it based on the area and the lack of opportunity in the area how much is going to cost to redevelop the space all that stuff like 300 grand i was like no that's doing it for free um for that space obviously if the oakland location gave me 300 grand i would have done it in a heartbeat because i would have done it for but the demand in oakland is so high and housing and affordability these people and my experience is every time a city is offered to give me money it's usually a bad time yeah like why because that doesn't make sense why would you want to give me money like they did the math and they're like okay if we do this we're gonna we're gonna do well on it so i'd say i mean but the just simple economics says just because if it's dependent you know population growth is happening at such a rapid speed that that ice will eventually work yeah will it work this year maybe not will work in three years probably just because just we are getting populated and if especially any city in california and yeah this was a city in california i i would that city still is that city still terrible now if you look back and go today today this was in like 2010 ish maybe 2012.

30:42it's probably booming now so this the city is still a it's a world famous city obviously and that same exact spot that they were offering me 300 ,000 for i still wouldn't do it really even though it's been 10 years yeah you still wouldn't do it not in that part where they wanted me to be yeah oh wow so that okay then you okay well then you were right Just keep in mind, California did kind of get, a lot of areas did kind of get killed by COVID. And not even by COVID, more like the COVID policy, where literally areas of cities were shut down, shut down, and they still haven't revived. And in a lot of areas, not everywhere.

31:17You opened the Ikes near me and Tustin during COVID. Yeah. Okay, so how much did COVID impact your business? we were lucky in that doordash uber eats uh post me all these like companies that you'd maybe even never heard of we launched on those back when we were the preeminent sandwich place in san francisco one of the top ones in la but for sure in the bay area and so all these when they were becoming ideas they're like hey ike come on our platform we do this and i remember back then i'm like you should pay me to be on this and so we did actually get paid to be on a lot of these platforms that now it's the opposite where people have to pay to be on them and then so we were blessed in that we already had delivery capabilities we've already been on all those doordash uber and all the other ones i mean you were rubbing elbows with their owners the ceos of all these thrown out of a few their their parties places yeah we've had some disputes here or there there's and some of these places they have conference rooms named after the business ike's so we have got a lot of pros and cons or people coming over my house and then be like what the hell you know so we got some nitty gritty like one day it'll be a book and they'll be like oh this person and this person and that person but we launched with all these things so when when with covid what happened is well we You were already on every single delivery platform.

32:46And we had been on there for five, six, eight years, some of them. So we already had high placement, high reviews. And when it became natural for people to order from their phone, it was just we kind of were able to – well, we did have more sales during COVID than we did the years before. Wow. You scaled during COVID in the restaurant space? We opened locations during COVID. Obviously, profitability came down because costs would, you know, one day something was going to be there or we had to not have chicken for a week or roast beef or whatever it was. So there was difficulties, but we actually had higher sales year over year through COVID, probably because we were already on all these.

33:27We already had an app. So we were set in place, but this is back before places had apps. This is back before. You were tech forward before tech forward was a thing in the restaurant space. Yeah, we had an app since 2010. So that's how long ago we've had an app. We were just able to adapt and make our app better once COVID and stuff happened. And then keep in mind, DoorDash and all that stuff, they were way less of a percentage of businesses than they were during COVID, which was like 100 % of most people's businesses were that during COVID. So do we have the ability to order Ikes from the Ikes app directly?

34:02Yeah, and get delivered. You have drivers? So we'll save money? You'll save all the fees. i don't know if they want me to say that it's cheaper if you get delivery on my app than whatever app you're using even if they're giving you vip that's great to know yeah so order go to ike's uh sandwiches.com and find somebody hopefully somebody's close enough to deliver to you yeah so so from tustin what's it what's this yeah i'm just asking for the office well there's costa mesa there's tustin there's you have one of costa mesa too and newport i'm sure all those yeah when i was googling earlier from my hotel i'm like where's i always like to do that where am i where's an ike's and i pull up the map and it's like there was three of them within 20 minutes from my hotel i was staying in costa mesa so for me it's it's like oh look there's four here so you know if i want if i because i get obviously free ike's right so if i'm like i want to get food delivered to me like let me just check it out and yeah they all four delivered to my hotel so that i was close enough for all of them to deliver to where i was so there's delivery so you have cars for every ike's it's uh through a third party service but yeah that's pretty cool I did not know I'd save the delivery fee.