Justin Devillier: Stop Fixing What's Already Broken

0:00Justin Devillier: I'm going to ask you a question that might sting a bit. How many holiday parties do you have booked for the month of December? Not like how many do you expect? It's how many are on the books right now with the deposits collected and the contracts signed. And for many of you, I worry that the answer is not enough. And here's why that matters. I think that the companies that are going to throw those parties are picking their venues right now. This is a sweet spot between August and September. And by the time you start thinking about December, the decision's already been made. You're not losing those parties in November.

0:34Justin Devillier: You're going to lose them this month. And that's why I built the Private Events Engine. It's a simple three-part system that leverages AI to do most of the work for you. And this month in the Marketing Masterclass, I'm going to walk you through it. It's going to show you how to package events, how to get in front of the people that are booking them, and how to close them without discounting. And you get the whole thing for free. So show up to this month's Marketing Masterclass. Go to restaurantbusinessschool.com today to sign up. Now here we go. Focusing on all those problems can actually become a hindrance to what a lot of people call consistency, but I think we should probably call it something else like growth, getting better.

1:18Sometimes you just can't fix your problem. Sometimes you're not built to like manage a certain problem and you keep beating your head against the wall trying to fix it, and maybe it's just not your thing.

1:28Justin Devillier: Welcome to Full Comp, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restaurateurs, thought leaders, and innovators, served up on the house.

1:42Justin Devillier: What if the standard you're most proud of is the thing holding your restaurant back? Justin Devillier has run Le Petit Grocery in New Orleans for two decades, won a James Beard Award and opened a 210-seat brass break, then closed it and is now opening Daughters in the old upper line space. His take on consistency is blunt, delivering the same experience. Every visit is how good restaurants slide into mediocrity. In today's conversation, we get into why chasing your weaknesses drains the energy you should be putting into your strengths. What scale actually magnifies when you go from a small room to a 200-seat restaurant?

2:22Justin Devillier: And why taking care of the guests is still the cheapest advantage in business? If you're grinding on problems and wondering why nothing is moving, this one's going to reframe where those efforts land.

2:40I grew up with a creative mind. I just remember early on always having ideas for movie scenes and things like that running through my head as a child. I was very into art and music and things like that. I just gravitated towards the creative side of life. Somewhere in my early teens, I befriended a couple guys who were in my neighborhood that I grew up in who were chefs at a local hotel. And that kind of piqued my interest into like, oh, that sounds so cool. You get to create food. And there was something that's always just kind of drawn me towards food and towards cooking.

3:24Justin Devillier: And I think that my creative nature also just kind of threw gasoline on that fire for me. So as I set out in my career as a chef and cook and all that as like a young man, you don't know at first. And you don't know when you're that young, kind of what your path is going to be or what you're going to try to do. And I always kind of thought I would wind up working in an organization or for somebody else and focus on being a chef. And I thought that was how it was going to go. And honestly, the restaurateur part just kind of unfolded through working and opportunities and some dumb luck and some hard work.

4:08So it definitely wasn't something that I set a goal and plan to do. The restaurant ownership part, it definitely unfolded through my career. And at a young age, I actually found myself in an ownership position. I think I was 28 years old when I first took over some ownership of Lopty Grocery. So that wasn't the plan. I moved to New Orleans in 2003, and I was a line cook at that time. And I kind of set myself this goal that I would work here and maybe work some other places and try to have like a 10-year period of apprenticeship and learning and then go off and try to become a chef. It didn't unfold like that.

4:51It was more like a four or five year crash course, crazy opportunities, high speed. And then all of a sudden I was a restaurateur.

5:00Justin Devillier: So let's talk about that. I think your story is really interesting because we had opposite paths. So like you were in Southern California, you moved to New Orleans in the early 2000s. I was in Baton Rouge and then I moved to Southern California in the early 2000s. And I think we both did it, you know, from a restaurateur, from a chef's perspective for very similar reasons. my idea was is to go steal a brilliant idea in Southern California and then install it in Louisiana, just like I'm sure you, especially when you look at Southern California in that era, it certainly wasn't the dining mecca that it is today.

5:34Justin Devillier: So there was probably a ton more to learn culinarily in New Orleans in the early 2000s than there was in Southern California. So I totally get it. And then here we are all these years later and we're both trapped. right we both yeah it was where we went i would say that this dining theme in california at that time was definitely like resort driven there was some big name chefs in you know san francisco and la and stuff but everything else was kind of resorts trying to get those chefs to put their name on something going on at the at the coastal resort and i quickly learned around that around 19 years old that that's not what I wanted to really do was that kind of resort thing.

6:20And you're exactly right. I moved to New Orleans because I felt like it was driven by restaurants, independent restaurants, and chefs who had a lot more control. It just seemed intriguing to me, and it seemed exciting. And there was a couple of chefs in particular that I had followed and really liked what they were doing. And that's what drew me out here.

6:41Justin Devillier: and yeah it's funny you you know you came from the south the south to the west coast i can west coast to the south that kind of reminds me about fishing the conundrum where it's like if you're fishing from shore you're trying to cast as far as you can out but if you're fishing from a boat you're trying to cast as close to the shore as possible it's just you know just one of those things absolutely i always love the idea of being an entrepreneur being an owner and then i was one And here's what I can tell you. And I'm sure you had a similar experience. Running other people's businesses was very different from running my own.

7:17Justin Devillier: As a matter of fact, it was day and night, even though a lot of the things were the same, the stress, the pressure, all of that was just, it was so different for me. And I think that until you've lived it, it's really hard to conceptualize. Because I think a top-level executive chef, no different than a best-in-class general manager, they're not laying awake at night worried about payroll. In the same way that when you own it and you operate it, you do. And so once you got a taste of ownership, how did that impact your overall career trajectory and how you evolved as an entrepreneur? As a chef or a non-owner chef, I could throw hours at anything and hard work at anything in the kitchen with a knife in my hand.

8:04And I feel like as an entrepreneur, there's so many other things that you're involved with and responsible for that you, that's not the answer anymore. and a huge part of what I do now is mentoring younger chefs and cooks and building that solid foundation within the organization because I feel like that that's all you really that's all you have as an entrepreneur is the people that you have in your organization who are your support system for your company, for your restaurant, for your kitchen. And that's a big difference because I feel like as a chef, non-owner, at least my experience was if I felt something was going south or starting to unravel, I could put hard work into it and it would fix it.

8:59And that's not necessarily the case as an entrepreneur because I feel like you're responsible for so many people and organizing and leading a team. And not only do you put hard work into it, but you have to inspire others to put hard work into it. And that's the, that's the sure part.

9:15Justin Devillier: The next question that I have for you is really around like your evolution is a leader. So I came up in independence. I know you did too. I also like when I look at the landscape of New Orleans, right? And it's different today than it was when you initially arrived, but it's a ton of lifestyle businesses. That's what the restaurant industry is. everybody owns one or two or three, they actively work in their businesses. There was no Robert LeBlanc. There weren't guys that owned a bunch of things across a bunch of different metros that were building these big things that weren't actively working in the businesses every single day.

9:53Justin Devillier: And so what ends up happening is you can look like an Arnots is an example, right? Or Commander's Palace, right? Where the founders are actively working in the business every single day. And if you love it and that's what you want to do, that's amazing. There's not a ton of optionality there. And so like my education in this industry would be divided into like three tiers. So first was I came up with independence. I only learned how independent operators worked. And because that was a vacuum, there were no best practices into becoming an entrepreneur, being influenced by other independent entrepreneurs in the field.

10:28Justin Devillier: and then we're all kind of learning and losing together into looking outside the industry. And that was a big paradigm shift for me, looking at how business people generally run businesses, which was very different than at least how I, in my circle, were running our businesses. And so being in New Orleans for so many years on this entrepreneurial path, how did you see your role within the organization evolve during that time so that you could open one place and then two and then three over the years. I mean, it's kind of like I mentioned a second ago where the role evolves into a position where it's so much more about team building.

11:13Sure, but where did you get those leadership skills?

11:16Justin Devillier: I guess is what I'm wondering. When there's no muse, when there's not like, oh, well, I'm going to lead like this guy leads. I think a lot of trial and error, a lot of unsuccessful leadership tactics as a young entrepreneur and figuring out what it is that keeps me inspired. And in turn, that leads me to want to inspire others. I think that's a big thing. I'm still figuring it out. I think that it's one of those things that grows as you're on the journey. You learn and stuff sticks to the snowball or whatever, and you try to ditch the things that didn't work or don't work. And it's this big try to keep it all organized as this leadership snowball or whatever.

12:07And it's definitely a living journey that's not, you know, I haven't figured it out. And when I do have wins, and I don't really mean personal wins as much as I mean when I feel like the organization is healthy and driven and motivated, I definitely try to kind of analyze what we're doing right. And, you know, that's something that I feel like recently in the past few years has been something I've tried to lean into a little bit more is analyzing the things we do right. Because so many times in the past, we're just trying to fix the problems that we do wrong. But figuring out what you do right and then trying to grow and do those things better can be as powerful as fixing your problems.

12:55because sometimes you just can't fix your problems. Sometimes you're not built to like manage a certain problem and you keep beating your head against the wall trying to fix it. And maybe it's just not your thing. But if you take the things that you do really good and build on those, you already have that foundation of, oh, we do this really well. Let's look at why we do it well and try to build on being more successful at it. And that's some of the tactics. But like I said, it's a journey. And I definitely don't have all the answers, especially for leadership. I try to use inspiration both ways as a big part of my leadership journey.

13:35And because that's the one place I feel like my side of the organization being like the culinary side can really see eye to eye. And if we're not, then it's probably not the best fit. But you want that atmosphere in your kitchen for sure.

13:50Justin Devillier: I don't know if you just felt that, but we just became best friends. this was like the biggest paradigm shift in my entire career dude so like i think restaurants are problem factories it's like whack-a-mole like you solve one problem and it's gonna unearth another problem and because there are so many problems i think it's so easy to focus on that but this thought experiment that i had so many years ago was around like what if we just 10x what we do well i coach restaurants in and around like the marketing space and like one of my favorite questions is like, you know, who wants to get busier on a Tuesday?

14:24Fucking everybody,

14:25Justin Devillier: Justin. Everybody wants to be busier on a Tuesday. And it's hard to do. And the reason is like, people don't want to go out on a Tuesday. That's why nobody's in your restaurant. Like nobody ever asked the question, like what would need to be true for me to double sales on Friday and Saturday when people are already out, when we already have momentum, right? When you don't need a discount or throw out freebies, what do you get to get people to choose you and to spend a little bit more. This idea of 10xing where the momentum is, I think is the great paradigm shift for our industry at large. Because again, you can spend the rest of your life fixing all of the problems in your restaurants.

15:03And there's the ages old philosophy of consistency in restaurants. and I also kind of feel like consistency can sometimes be measured in a very strange way which results in monotony or like okay if a guest comes in in January and they come back in May we need to make sure they have the same experience because they you know they told their friends about it and we need to make sure they have the same experience I've also feel like that should be pushed a little further than that and the idea that they should have a better experience and just in the form of trying to be better and trying to give a little bit more each time.

15:46And I feel like if you're caught up whacking problem, playing whack-a-mole with problems, it definitely is a favorable environment for that consistency to stay level and not have the positive acceleration or whatever you might want to call it. So focusing on all those problems can actually become a hindrance to what a lot of people call consistency. But I think we should probably call it something else like growth, getting better. Those are good words. I feel like consistency can very quickly equal mediocrity.

16:18Justin Devillier: Oh, total stagnation. Absolutely. I used to apologize to my team and I say, you know, we're in a constant state of improvement. We're always pushing like we lead with curiosity. We're always trying to figure out what can make it better. And And Lord knows there's so many things I launched, Justin, that I thought would inspire surprise and delight in people. And it inspired abject rage. But you don't know unless you try. Yeah. And sometimes, I mean, for all the good ideas that I've had, I've had plenty of ones that just didn't click. But all it takes is a couple of good ones here and there, you know, like.

16:53And I think that that's a huge positive force and improvement is like, just keep the ideas going and keep working on them. And not everyone has to come off the paper into real life, but every once in a while, one or two really good ones will. And I think that's very important. And again, I hate to keep going back to it, but I feel like if you're spending your time stressing on things you do bad, it kind of takes away from that. And I also I mean, you got to take care of the things you do bad. But if you're smashing your head against a wall and you can't figure it out, move on. I like to try to think like that.

17:27And I don't know, my wife might call it something different, but I feel like it's good for me.

17:31Justin Devillier: Let's talk about the foundations of a successful business. So I went from a 900 square foot bar in Hollywood where I could do no wrong to a 6 ,000 square foot, two story fine dining restaurant. What could possibly go wrong, Justin? And then I look at, you know, I look at Le Petit and like the fundamentals of that business. And then I look at Justine, which I think was like 210 seats. It's just a very different animal. Talk to me about the leverage, structured bets and guesses you had made on that, how it all worked out in your mind, and then what you learned from the experience overall, and how that informed the way you moved forward with La Petite.

18:14I think I really like the size of La Petite, and I feel like that format allows for a ton of creativity and quality management because you can it's still small enough where you can really move through things you can run specials you don't have to run 45 counts on specials and things like that so it's a little more intimate all around which i really like with justine definitely bigger i mean it was designed that way though it was i mean french brasserie you want that big kind of you want to walk in and feel the size of a restaurant like that and we definitely achieved that but it's way harder to run and i've said this before and i mean it's like everything is just magnified your wins are magnified at a restaurant like that and your losses are magnified and your problems are magnified and your successes on a daily basis are magnified so it's just much bigger all around and I don't necessarily think that that's something that I expected until I got into it I kind of went into it with oh we can do like we can do this this is just the same stuff we do we're just gonna you know pump out more numbers or whatever and it's a little bit more than that because like I said it magnifies everything and it magnifies the way that everything affects you and everyone around you and employees and it's just more more volume more everything is magnified and um so I definitely prefer the smaller format now me being stubborn and learning it in such a harsh way is just I guess how we learn as entrepreneurs sometimes but I love I mean La Petite is kind of my dream restaurant that I would have imagined as a young chef and it's a great size it's a great mix of very local but also tons of travelers that come through so I feel like it's way more my comfort zone I think Justine I was looking back very much doing everything I could but never really reached that comfort zone that I have at La Petite

20:43Justin Devillier: And was it difficult in your own mind to reconcile? Because this was my experience to reconcile doing something that you wanted to do, doing it well enough that this could be a thing and then deciding that you didn't want to do it anymore. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of phases to that. And I think by the time it came to the decision to close it down, it's so heartbreaking in the moment. And then you got to realize that it's the best thing for everybody. It's such a tough part of business. And I feel like, look, I don't know any other businesses, but I feel like in our business, you learn so much more, maybe because it's in your face, but you learn so much more from your losses.

21:35than from your wins as far as what you want to do moving forward and how it influences your path, I guess, is probably a big learning point in the ones that aren't successful.

21:47Justin Devillier: And I got to back up slightly because I feel like we had a lot of success there. The decision, I should reframe that as like deciding to close somewhere. Your restaurant's next growth opportunity may already be sitting in your dining room. The problem is your team may not know who it is. I talk a lot on this show about getting more revenue from the guests you already have. Gastology is built to help multi-location restaurant groups do exactly that. It connects to the systems you already use, identifies your highest value and highest potential clients when they arrive, and then it tells your team how to recognize them while they're still in your restaurant.

22:28Justin Devillier: I want you to reimagine loyalty. No points, no apps, no blanket discounts, just better hospitality that drives more visits and measurable revenue. Restaurants using Guestology are seeing traffic increases of up to 5%, and at scale, that can mean millions in incremental revenue. So if you run 10, 20, 50, 100 restaurant locations, you need Guestology. And for Full Comp listeners, Guestology is offering a complimentary invisible guest assessment to show you how much opportunity exists inside of your existing guest space. Go to guestology.com slash full comp to redeem this offer. That's guestology.com slash full comp.

23:12Justin Devillier: Stop chasing every new guest and start recognizing the valuable ones you already have. Let me say this. I think everybody listening in a lot, most restaurants statistically are middling, right? They're either making a little bit of money, losing a little bit of money or break even. It's an overwhelming statistic. And I think that for everybody listening, right, you can make it work, right? You might have to fix product market fit or awareness or frequency, but like anyone can make any business work if they're willing to pay the cost, whatever that is on an individualized basis. For me in the businesses that I have shuttered in the past, it was never because I didn't think I couldn't make it work.

23:59Justin Devillier: It was, I had reconciled that I didn't want to. And then like in doing it, especially like the first time it happened, The most surprising thing for me, Justin, was that I woke up the next morning and I wasn't dead. I didn't die. Like, life moved on. Everybody moved on. Everyone that was involved in the organization moved on. I moved on. I dealt with the ramifications of the positive and negative choices I had made. I think that there is so much to be said for not white-knuckling the things in your life, in your industry that don't serve you well, because then it opens you up to all of the things that you do love.

24:40Justin Devillier: I just think that one of the grand exceptions within our industry is that we're just not quitters, quote unquote quitters. They're like somebody will hang on to a middling business for 30 years when they don't even feel called to do it anymore. And so that brings me to my next question, which is like that little voice. I did enough research to know that you're doing incredibly well and you're very happy with where you are in your career at this stage. But it ebbs and it flows. How have you gotten really good at, especially when you look at the James Beard nods and all of this, all of this external pressure, being able to shut it out and advocate for yourself?

25:21there's a lot to that question but I feel like the answer would be just remembering just thinking for a second about everything in life and everyone around everyone who's been a part of things everyone who's spent time with us and there's a lot of other things in this world and me getting to do what I love. I absolutely love what I do. And me being able to do that and the prices that have to be paid sometimes because of risks or whatever. I mean, it's kind of like what you said a second ago. I wake up, I'm alive, and I get to play with food. And I get to work with awesome people. And I get to interact and build relationships with great patrons, that all of those things outweigh any kind of pressure.

26:21And, you know, I will say that probably as chefs, I mean, I think we all have some sort of fascination with pressure to an extent. Being able to navigate through things without recklessly being fascinated by that pressure can really help. Part of what I love about the job is how on a saturday night doing 220 covers and buzzing through service like just a phenomenal no missed movement type service that's like one of the best feelings ever and that's being able to operate under extreme pressure with other people on your team doing the same and that's one of the funnest things can we talk about daughters the restaurant or the actual offspring well i mean

27:14Justin Devillier: I guess how they play into each other. So let's talk about the restaurant itself to begin with. So the inspiration behind it, how this is an evolution and how you were able to take all of your learnings across the board and create this ostensibly amazing thing. This is something that's been in the works for a long time, just in the mind. And it's literally a neighborhood restaurant much like La Petite Grocery. La Petite Grocery is kind of this French Creole neighborhood restaurant and Daughters is an Italian-American comfort food. That's the cuisine leaning heavily into the Sicilian inspirations of New Orleans.

27:57But very much your classics, comfort food, very just homey, warm neighborhood spot. We started with the name, my business partner's daughter, Haley, threw it out there. And it literally was like the first name that got thrown out there. And we just were like, that's it.

28:17Justin Devillier: Because he has a girl and I have girls and it's just too good of a fit. And really a big part of our ambitions are neighborhood and family oriented. And we feel like nothing translates out as well as daughters. and yeah we're just I mean we're really excited for me personally it's quite a journey of reinvention you know I kind of started so let's go back like pre-covid after the James Beard Award win a lot of media stuff and like opportunities to travel and do things and I kind of stepped away from the kitchen a lot petite a little bit and then I mean I'm still involved was always always involved in day-to-day but had a really good team to support that and allowed me to kind of do some other things we opened justine and that through the went through the pandemic a year later and kind of had this struggle really afterwards to figure out what we were doing and how we were going to do that and ultimately closed it in 2024 or 2025 but um so this for me is definitely me getting back into the kitchen full-time working as the chef and building a menu a cuisine and an experience from the ground up and that's what I'm most excited about at least for me and I'm just really pumped and like I'm building a really great team of other cooks and chefs.

29:57And I'm just really excited about all of that. And I don't know, I'm 40, so I'm 45 this in about a month. I think I can probably make it in the kitchen. So I'm about 65. We'll see.

30:12Justin Devillier: Well, now let's get into the offspring. So if you're 45, let's assume that your children are still at an age, your daughters are still at an age where they're willing to associate with you. and knowing that that window closes and then it reopens. I've got a daughter myself. What is your perspective on balance? I believe that based on my understanding of your business fundamentals and the fact that you're a property owner, right? Because you own 1413 Upper Line, right? So like you are a man with options, which is like the grand exception in this industry. When you decided to take on the executive chef role, not when you decided to open another restaurant, But when you decided that this was going to be the restaurant that you helped, how did you work out the math around this is how I'm going to be available to my family?

31:01Justin Devillier: This is something that contributes to that dynamic. Because, I mean, just based on what I see, I'm like, I don't know what your bank accounts look like, but I don't think you needed it to pay your bills. You know what I mean? And so I think you had an ostensibly good life in a community that you are able to serve intimately with a sterling reputation. And so in order to move into this, I would assume that there's this give get, right? That if I do this, it's going to add this amount of value to me creatively, culinarily, but then, you know, as a father, as a spouse, all of these things. How did you make the math, math?

31:38Justin Devillier: And the reason I ask that is because I'm 46, right? And so at 45, I just, I think about growth differently. There are just so many other people in my life now that it's just, it's a far more considered decision. From like a slightly selfish standpoint, I really want to get back to that level of creative outlet and be working with a team to create on a daily basis and really put out the best possible dishes that we can and see what's possible and build this beautiful neighborhood restaurant. As far as balance, like with the kids and stuff, I don't know they go to school right next door they're going up so fast and I'm sure they'll be spending a lot of time there I've got a couple who are interested in working in the kitchen and I've got my oldest is she's already working the door of Appetite and I'll continue to foster that for sure whereas like I feel like so many people that I know and it's not a I'm not ripping on anybody so many people I know are like oh I would never let my kids work in this industry but I'm absolutely opposite of that.

32:48I think it's amazing and I think it's an amazing industry. And I think that if they choose to do something else, that's great. But the experience of being a teenager and working in your parents' restaurants in New Orleans, I think is definitely priceless opportunity. And I hope they lean into it. Balance-wise, I mean, I don't see a lot of balance. And I think balance is like up to what the individual decides is the balance right for some people balance is very work heavy for some people balance is very not you know life heavy or whatnot i think just kind of intertwining the two having this life where we're all kind of in and out of the restaurants and the girls are growing up like that i think is uh kind of the path we'll see ourselves on And obviously there's all these sports and things like that they have to do.

33:40And we will rely on friends and family to help with that. And also go and make those treks when we can. But I think that everyone's going to, when we commit to doing this, everyone has to make some sacrifices.

33:56Justin Devillier: And at the end of the day, I think it'll be really fun for everybody. I wish I had a restaurant to work in when I was 14 years old learning. I wish I could learn how to be a chef when I was 14. For sure. How do you know it's going to work? I would assume that, you know, if your career is anything like mine, that, you know, it was all, when I was in my 20s, it was all so complicated and convoluted, right? And now it's like back of the napkin. Not to say that it's easy, because it certainly isn't. But like the math has just become very simple. And so like when you look at daughters, the reason that you know it's going to be successful is because you can seat this many people, you'll do this many turns based on this per customer average spend.

34:40Justin Devillier: Talk to me about the back of the napkin and your approach to building a restaurant that you believe is guaranteed to win. Yeah, I mean, you can definitely budget all day long. And I'm a little bit more woo-woo than like say my wife is who's got an accounting background and she'll put down numbers on paper and look at performance and budgets and stuff like that and let those things guide and tell a story. And I will too, to an extent. But I'm way more like this is going to be successful because we're going to create an experience that is going to just draw people all the time on a regular basis.

35:21And that's my job is creating that experience, creating it around the food and the culture. And I honestly just love the concept wholeheartedly. I think it's just so needed here in our neighborhood. And we're also, this goes back a little bit to the numbers thing, but we also have like 50 seats upstairs for private dining with an auxiliary kitchen to service it. So from an economic standpoint, that's a huge plus. but at the end of the day, I mean, for me, it comes down to we are going to live and die by what we create. That's up to me and the culinary team in the kitchen. And it's up to Maria and the service team on the floor.

36:10And that's what I focus on. But yeah, it's nice having an accountant for a wife and a business partner.

36:16Justin Devillier: I've got one last question for you. What should we steal from you? You know, if we go back to the genesis of the conversation, which is, you know, we shouldn't be fixing problems. We should be doubling down on what's working. I would assume as you've gone through this, especially right with the opening of a restaurant, you've got an inventory and you've got to say, well, what's worked consistently over the last 20 plus years would have been the things that I have done that have served me well. And for so many of those things, I think we like, we could steal them from each other. Right. and so like what are the tactics the tools the strategies that have served you well over the last two plus decades that we could steal and would make us more successful i think it's tough because you have to grow this into your organization but truly putting the guest first i feel like is the lowest hanging fruit and you get the biggest bang for your buck if you can create an experience where you change somebody's day or you, you know, blow somebody away with an experience that maybe they're younger and it's the first time they've ever been treated like that in the restaurant or whatever it may be.

37:27That's the golden ticket. And when we were early on at La Petite, like when I first took over as chef before I became an owner, it was slow and we were kind of trying to bounce back from Katrina and also bounce back from like a lot of transition. And it was just a shapey time and um i remember on a few different occasions letting people in and i don't i'm not saying people should this is like a hospitality key or fundamental but i just remember letting people in after hours and cooking for them from time to time because in my mind i would tell myself these people live in this neighborhood and if i can impress them or give them some sort of reputation builder, then that's a huge positive and I can build from there.

38:18And to this day, I still think that no matter what we do, what we create, how big or how small we are, we do it because we love taking care of people and we love creating these experiences for our diners. And I think that making sure that that stays at the forefront of all of our ambition as restaurateurs and at the forefront of all of our journeys, I think that's a huge step in the right direction. Most important thing.

38:51Justin Devillier: That's Justin Devillier. To learn more about La Petite Grocery, visit lapetitegrocery.com. Hey, it's Josh. I wanted to take a hot minute to thank you for listening to today's episode and to ask that if you are getting value from FullConf, please like and subscribe and be sure to leave a review. Those reviews matter and they help other independent owners and operators find the show. Also, if you want to take the stuff that we're talking about in these episodes from idea to execution, head to joshcopal.com. There you will find a ton of free templates and tools and all of the details on upcoming learning events so you can keep building momentum.

39:31Justin Devillier: I know you're busy and so don't take your time for granted. Thank you again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.