Mellow Mushroom Refuses to Be Just Another Pizza Chain

0:00Hey everybody, I gotta tell you, we're gonna talk about Built. Built Hospitality. Millions of people use Built every day, that's right, every day to earn rewards on housing and in their neighborhood. But now, now it extends to your restaurant. That's where Built Hospitality comes in. Built Hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of. Built's restaurant-facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform alongside an agentic concierge. That's right, an AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes.

0:47Using the latest and greatest in AI technology. When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes. Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right, the entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right. That's what Built Hospitality is doing. It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over. Make every guest feel like a regular. Every time.

1:22Not just their first time. Every time. They're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere. Learn more at BuiltDining.com backslash hangout. That's BuiltDining.com backslash hangout. And check out what Built Hospitality is going to do for you and your restaurant. You just immediately go like, it's hippie, psychedelic, it's cool, it's 70s, it's eye dye. I always struck me at the Mellow Mushroom. It's just, it's a cool name. One of the biggest reasons I chose Mellow over anything is because I know the food is so good and we have been so steadfast in making the food quality so good for 52 years now.

1:59This brand can stand the test of time. To me, that's meant a lot because I want to stand the test of time. Like I think lifestyle is so important today in branding. It's like, it's not enough just to have food. That's right. So you've got to have a whole lifestyle. Live from the Pizza Cloud Studios at the QSR Conference in Atlanta. It's the Hospitality Hangout Podcast with Shotzi the Restaurant Guy. Oh, that's me. I'm Shotzi the Restaurant Guy. And I'm with my partner, Jimmy, the finance guy, Jimbo. I'm excited to be in Atlanta. I gotta tell you, I'm having a great time so far. Let's kick off another incredible episode of the Hospitality Hangout.

2:42brought to you by our friends at Pizza Cloud. You're doing your best impersonation, Ron Berg, in the IZ. Oh, why? I read nothing. I said I read it wrong. No, no, whatever's on the script, you're reading it, baby. All right. Okay, San Diego. Thank you, San Diego. I'm Jimmy Frischling. I'm the finance guy. And I have the privilege of welcoming you more formally to the Hospital Daily Hangout. And today we're having fun hanging out at the Pizza Cloud studio. Our next guest did not come up through the kitchen. So don't take offense, but you're not a hustler. He's a hustler. He's not a hospitality hustler.

3:16Right, not a hustler. He's definitely a hustler. He's a hustler. Okay, this is the gentleman who came up working through the world of consulting and management consulting through Fortune 500, working with Fortune 100 companies before falling in love with Stone Baked Pizza called the Holy Shiitake and joining the Mellow Mushroom team in 2019. Cincinnati's helped lead the brand. The Holy Shiitake? The holy shiitake. Holy shiitake. You like that? Holy shiitake. You know, if we were playing a game of sounds like a curse word but isn't, I think the shiitake mushroom might rank like a top answer on the family feud board.

3:50Do you think somebody was like, this tastes like shiitake? Holy shiitake. But here we go. This is a gentleman who is helping lead this brand through a full rebrand for its 50th anniversary, brought in Digital Kitchen. Did you say 50? 50. I did not know that. The golden anniversary. I am learning something new here. It's a whole new counter service format. Okay? All while keeping Mello's cool, maybe weird, I have to say. Counterculture is better. Counterculture. Okay? Soul intact. All about soul. Please welcome Executive Vice President of Strategy and Transformation at Mello Mushroom, Mr. Ahsan Jeeva.

4:29Thank you guys for having me. Ahsan Jeeva. All right. All right. We got it. EVP Strategy and Transformation. We are going to get to know his story. Before we begin, one thing. Oh, Jesus, Jimmy. By the way, there are two ways to be near and dear to my heart. Bring you food is the one. Bringing food would be one. Bring me food. And second. Bring me more food. And second would be. Bring me more food. Food and a hat. Bring me food and a hat. That's one, food, two, hat. Let's get this going. Wait, which is one? The food. And what's two? Right here, baby. What's three? More food. Yeah, more food. Exactly.

5:05I would say. More food. All right, well, listen, Jimmy, you know how you, what do you got to do to become the EVP of strategy and transformation? Whatever the hell that means, we don't have, we're going to find out. I would say Wicked Smart. You go to Auburn, right? Oh, Auburn. Where you go? You study accounting, get a master's degree in something very incredible. You work in your family's liquor store, you know, slinging booze, probably giving a discount to his friends who came in underage, probably not checking IDs. The statute of limitations has expired. Thank you for that. No way. His friends were all loving his family's liquor still.

5:39You know that, right? He's selling massage chairs at Brookstone. Remember that? Love those. I used to go to, I used to spend like the whole day at like, what was that? Sharp Rimage at Brookstone. Oh, yeah. That was like a day you take the kids. It was like a museum. It was like two hours, you know, for free. You and I was taking out of the chairs. I was, yeah, you were kicking me. I was like, sorry, you're not buying me. You're not buying me. Would you please allow another potential customer, another customer to potentially purchase? It's way nicer than the whole idea. Yeah, that was me. But group eating mellow mushroom, spent five years as Jimmy, as you said, consulting at Ernst & Young, bored out of his mind, bored out of his mind, but he learned something.

6:17You know what he learned? He loved mellow mushroom, right? Damn right. That's what he learned, right? Starts working there, works his way up, and now, as you said, 50 years, they got over 160 locations, 17 states. The food is unbelievable. What did I get right? What did I get wrong? Anything. Well, I learned only one thing. What? Which is. From me? From you. Oh, what? I taught you something already. What did I teach you? What did I teach you? Well, you taught me that it was not just my experience, but it was my love for pizza that brought me here. Oh, of course. I love pizza. Yeah, of course you do.

6:52You're allowed to care. You can say that. I thought it was an FCC violation, but I learned it's not. No, it's not. No. Who does it love? If you were on a deserted island and you could have one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Well, it's pizza. I mean, you can make anything out of pizza. You can make a dessert pizza. You can make holy shiitake. But it's also, it's fruit, the tomato. Yeah. Right? It's got dairy, the cheese. Uh-huh. And I don't know, the cross. The carbs, yeah. It's the perfect food. You see, Shanti, by the way, quick sidebar. Yeah. I think you subtly and unintentionally just dropped some knowledge to our listeners.

7:26About what? identifying knowing that a tomato is a fruit. By the way, here comes the next part. But wisdom is knowing not to put tomato in a fruit salad. Boom. But the thing is, Jimmy, if tomato's a fruit and it's on pizza, Kramer wanted to put cucumber on pizza. Cucumber's a fruit. Fun fact, we have a pizza called a tie-dye that has cucumbers on it. You can't put cucumber on a pizza, Kramer. Unacceptable. Right? Don't knock it until you try it. Right. Don't knock it until you try it. You know what? I'm not going to yuck on someone else's yum. That's right. Absolutely not. Well, I got to tell you, it's super exciting.

8:09So let's jump into it, Jimmy. Let's learn all about this. So I want to talk about, because you come from a very different background, or maybe a non-traditional background, I would say. but hospitality really is very welcoming but you come from a consulting background talk to me about what struck you with Mellow Mushroom not just to change careers and join the industry but maybe some of the things you brought with you because again we're a very inclusive industry and we welcome skill sets so talk about what was it that struck you with Mellow Mushroom and maybe some of the skills or learnings that felt, you know what, I can really add a lot of, I could add value here.

8:55Yeah, no, there was a few different things that brought me here. As Shati said, I mean, I went to Auburn, Mellow Mushroom was there in Auburn, and I can tell you the few dollars that I had all went to pitchers at Mellow. So I kind of grew up with it, right? And then started my career and really did a lot of customer experience, digital transformation work, which is really industry agnostic for the most part. Sure. So then I had a conversation, met some of the executive team kind of figured out what they were doing at Mellow, which I was like, man, they're doing, quite frankly, nothing that they probably should be doing when it comes to evolving in the digital era.

9:28And I was like, man, if I could just get my hands on it, maybe I can do something with it. And of course, you know, the food product is amazing. And one of the biggest reasons I chose Mellow over anything is because I know the food is so good and we have been so steadfast in making the food quality so good for 52 years now. And I'm like, this brand can stand the test of time. and to me that's that meant a lot because i want to stand the test of time you know and so that's why i say you know what let me take my talents to atlanta and see what we can do it take your talent to atlanta i like that see what we can do it and i think i just i always struck me at the mellow mushroom it's just it's a cool name because immediately when you said mellow mushroom they call me mellow yellow like i mean you just immediately go like it's hippie psychedelic it's cool it's 70s it's tie-dye you said you have a tie-dye pizza with a cucumber on it you know So, I mean, it just seems like you've created, like, I think lifestyle is so important today in branding.

10:20It's like, it's not enough just to have food. That's right. So you've got to have a whole lifestyle. Like, can you buy hats and all that stuff? Absolutely. And shirts and all that? I mean, our merch line, actually, you know, for the first, like, 45 years of our brand, we actually created a custom shirt for every single location that we opened. Oh, really? And that way, you know, not just a t-shirt, but hats, the interior decor, all of that within the restaurant environment really made it feel so local and unique to the community. Right. And that really sort of brought out who we are as a brand.

10:52It kind of evolved us into this counterculture, artistic forward. No two stores are the same, but great damn pizza in every single store you go to. Yeah, I got to tell you, I think it's unbelievable. Like you said, you're growing like gangbusters. So what's like, where is the growth now? Now, what area of the country are you seeing is loving Mellow Mushroom? You know, it's interesting. You know, we started in Atlanta, so you would think the southeast is really where we hit home. And we did, you know, for the first, you know, many decades of our existence. But now our name brand has kind of exploded.

11:22We have people reaching out to us from the Middle East. We have people reaching out to us from Canada. Do you have international stores yet? No, not yet. Not yet. So we said, look. So is that breaking news? Not yet. Not yet. It's not breaking news yet. Because we said, look, we have plenty of opportunity domestically. So we're seeing a lot of interest and a lot of tourist destination, a lot of out west. California is another state that we are not in today, but we get requests all the time to join. It's a happy brand. It's a very happy brand. Yeah. Well, you know, the name of the brand was actually Magic Mushroom before.

11:50It was what? It was Magic Mushroom. Well, yeah. See, Magic. I told you, psychedelic. I want to borrow one of your lines. And before Shati makes fun of me for, he'd say, stealing one of your lines, I'm coming clean. And I am acknowledging that this is one of yours. Okay. It pays to be late. Ah. And. What do you mean by that, Jimmy? And what I mean by that is when it comes to tech strategy, there are those that are early adopters, want to be first, want to be trailblazers. And that is their strategy. Right. And there are those that intentionally say, I'm okay being second. I'm okay. You're like Bill Murray.

12:25I'm pacing myself. I'm pacing myself. Sergeant. I'm okay. So, and by the way, that may become a theme or a headline in my newsletter. It pays to be late. But talk about for Mellow Mushroom, especially as you're, you know, rebuilding a lot of the data and the tech infrastructure while there were brands that raced ahead. Talk about your philosophy on embracing the it pays to be late. Yeah, no, it's definitely a term I have used, but I think it came accidentally. way. Let's put it that way. Because when I first joined, we were, quite frankly, behind in many of the areas that I would argue that we're punching way above our weight class now, right?

13:05So for example, the day I joined, the first question I asked is, hey guys, where can I access all of our sales data? Well, you can go to this portal, you can download this spreadsheet, and you can manipulate it, and then you can go about your way. And that was a light bulb moment for me. And I was like, wow, we are way behind in where we need to be. But the beauty of that was now with artificial intelligence and how data needs to be streamlined and cloud-based and data models. We were very late, but we built our infrastructure that's ready for now and five years from now. I was going to say, probably at a fraction of the price if somebody did it 10 years ago.

13:35Exactly. So cheaper, smaller teams, and more scalable. You know what you were really doing? You knew. You were ahead of the curve. You know why? They waited, Jimmy. Waited. Patience, Jimmy. He said, as long as it was accidental, but no, he suddenly said, you know what? Take a pause. This wasn't accidental. So this is incredibly strategic. So I don't know if we'll get this out of you on this episode. If so, we'll dub in the breaking news music. But I understand that there's a loyalty play happening in Q1 2027. So I respect that we're still at the kind of, we've still got a few weeks left of Q3 26.

14:15So this may not be announceable. But I do hear there is a loyalty. Are we breaking the news? We're not breaking the news. I guess it's up to our friends. Well, you know what? We'll break it a little bit. So, yes, there is a loyalty program coming after 52 years. It is coming in early 2027. What are we calling it? You know what? We have played a lot with fun names over the years, but we realize that sometimes you just got to keep it simple, right? People don't want to. So it's Mellow Mushroom Loyalty? It's the MML. Is it the MML? It's Mellow Mushroom Rewards. Mellow Mushroom. MMR. I like it even more.

14:51Again, loyalty is an outcome, but people want a reward. We talk about loyalty. Guests don't think about loyalty. They just want something that they get from spending with the brand. You give me the reward, I'll be loyal. What does my rewards get me over? In 27, when I get it and I download it, what do I get? Well, we were talking earlier about merch. Yep. A lot of brands do free food, which we're going to do, obviously, right? But because we're such an experiential brand, we want to invite our guests into that experience. I think that's a much better idea. We have over 100 ,000 square feet of sculptures and art and a studio where we create a lot of the art and the stuff that goes into the restaurants.

15:27So we think that, you know, our most loyal members should get to experience some of that. So maybe if you buy enough pizzas over the next year, we'll get an invite to something like that. Yeah, I like it. I think that's really interesting. I also love the merch idea. You give someone, yes, an extra pizza or something. Everybody can do that. They can do that. But can you give them a cool piece of merch that then they become a billboard? Exactly. An ambassador of your brand. Ambassadors. So not only are you guys bringing in new tech, bringing in loyalty. I mean, you guys were basically a sit-down restaurant.

16:04And you've now kind of changed that around and you're doing a full counter service. That's new, right? That's one piece of our pie, yes. Of a new structure. What's behind that? What happened that you guys are like, hey. You're going to let him get away with, say, one piece of the pie. Thank you. And not jump on that? I gave him a chance to do it. Are you not going to grab that? That's one piece of the pie. Now, what led to this piece of the pie change? And then we'll get to the other piece of the pie. It was eight ideas, eight components, eight pieces. There's eight slices. It's a small piece, so there's four.

16:42Oh, sorry. Four slices to this pie. The first slice is we're doing, why are we bringing in this new counter service? Well, we've been in a full service sit down restaurants for 50 years of our existence. Is that all your stores are full serve sit down? Correct. So about two years ago, coming out of the legendary COVID, everyone saw what was happening in the industry. A lot of brands have done something similar to create an offshoot sort of counter service, smaller box concept. Right. And so we said, you know what? I think we need to do something similar, not because everyone else is doing it, but because we need more ways for people to invest in and experience a brand at a lower cost of entry.

17:17Full service restaurants, four to five thousand square feet. They can run you a million, a half million dollars to build a counter service, a lot less labor, same great food, smaller box, easier to operate, easier to get into. That makes a lot of sense. All right. So, so pie number one is it was just opportunity to, instead of like have a new footprint, now I can, you know, I do airports, maybe I can do stadiums. I could just do, you know, look at more real estate options that I didn't have before. Now, what's the other piece of the pie? Well, and I think what it did is it allowed us to have an experiential testing ground.

17:54So instead of saying, we're going to test an LTO here, we're going to test something new there and just extend that process for years on end. We said, why don't we just test all these great ideas we have in one box and see what happens. Now, my statisticians out there are going to argue with me saying, hey, you got a lot of variables there. How do you know what's working versus what's not? Right. So multiple different pilot stores. So we just opened up our newest one in Noonan, Georgia, about 30 minutes south of here. counter service concept. But the reality is, that's how we started, guys. Back in 1974, our first location was a counter service pizza joint.

18:25That's what we were. And we evolved into a full service. A lot of it is just bringing us back to our roots. Back to the roots. That's right. Are you ready for this? Nate's going to love this. Why? For mellow mushroom, what's old is new. It's new again. It's old and new. And you know what we call that? We call that neutro. So it's a new retro. And we build that philosophy into our store design, into our food and everything. how do you take that new nostalgia nostalgia nostalgia all those different words that we're hearing now i love that yeah nostalgic i want to talk a little bit about what you're doing embracing the digital kitchen and and i want to bring in our friends um from from phone cloud uh pizza cloud and phone cloud same company um and talk about some of your stores about a third of your stores i understand i've made the switch um have embraced and when it comes to you know digital, I feel like the guests right now want speed.

19:19They want accuracy. Clearly they want the amazing food and the experience. And it's all part of a bigger picture. And at the end of the day, the phone matters a lot. Especially in pizza. Especially in pizza. In fact, our friends at PhoneCloud started as PizzaCloud. So talk to me a little bit about how you guys are working and maybe how PizzaCloud has been accretive and helpful to mellow mushroom because, you know, a missed call is a missed sale. I remember, you know, when I first started in restaurants, it was the three ring rule. The phone rang more than three times. You lost this customer. You lost them.

19:58They went somewhere else, right? So, and it's not just, you can't just outsource it and say, now we're never going to answer our phone. That I know. And by the way, I know that because I was chatting with the CEO earlier about it can't be we're never answering the phone. Human has to be in the loop. But talk to me a little bit about that collaboration and in general, just how your guests are interacting digitally. Because the fact is the phone is really important. And we've got to make it seamless and friction as frictionless as possible for our guests. Yeah, I think we're working on a partnership here in the future.

20:27So we don't have a third of our stores rolled out on phone yet, but we are going to work on a partnership. For us, the biggest thing is we want to give time back to the people that need it the most. That's our frontline teams, right? It's the people that interact with the guests the most. So if I'm sitting here and I've been in my restaurant at seven o 'clock on a Friday night, that phone is ringing off the hook. Right. I've seen two, three, even four people sometimes dedicated just to answer the phone, just to answer the phones. And I think pizza is unique in that it's about 15 percent of our business still comes from the phone.

20:55Right. And it's not just your boomers. Right. So it's people that maybe don't want to take the time to customize it on their on a phone like me. You know, I call and I place an order. So really what we're doing is we're taking a lot of voice. say i wait a minute you call mellow mushroom i call yeah as a tech guy i'm the one do they know you when you call no because i'm doing a little mystery shopping sometimes oh so you're doing like on the cover he's using his burner phone yeah yeah one of my many you order yeah well you know the biggest thing i'm doing is quote times because that's that's what i'm really focused on right oh you want to hear when they tell you 15 minutes or whatever right because you know what's happening we rolled out kds we're about 80 done with our implementation the kds tells you what's your wait time is now right our team members were way too used to being like eh it's gonna be about an hour guys if they sell an hour versus 45 minutes to 30 minutes you can lose those sales of course i'm gonna wait an hour for a pizza no one wants to wait an hour for their food so that's what i'm doing when i'm calling them but you know what voice ai is going to be a game changer when it gets to over 95 accuracy because i truly feel that when a guest talks to ai they're less um forgiving when there's a mistake because they expect it to be great if you're gonna give me technology make it great i mean it is really i mean it's not changing like yearly it's changing monthly it's getting so good so fast it's unbelievable and i mean i just remember like just thinking of my house when i remember first got my first uh like alexa i think it was the i know it was an amazon no but i have another i have like the newer ones you know but i don't know what is it the echo whatever maybe i have a dot now i don't know what i have whatever i All I know is it has come so far and I have full on brawls with my Alexa just going back and forth.

22:38It makes Jillian incredibly uncomfortable. I talk to my Alexa and we talk about all these different things. Would you order pizza from Alexa? Have you tried to order pizza from Alexa? I haven't. Is that, should I be doing that? Well, I'm trying to get some, you know, live customer research here, whether I should invest in that or not. So would you do it? I'm still looking up what Alexa is. I'm like, Alexa. yeah I mean I also have the Google what's the Google one there's a Google one Gemini yeah the Google the Google pod thing yeah there's a Google one too but in that I love the Alexa and no but the whole voice has gotten so smart you can do a lot of things Jillian does it's like it'll say to you you know oh it's 75 degrees and sunny by the way you're running low on toilet paper do you want me to send you something like sure and then yeah and then I was on just any toilet paper.

23:28It's gotten really good. I feel like, I don't want to take us down this path. How does Alexa know you're running low on toilet paper? Because it knows when the last time you ordered, so it just sees your ordering history. Got it. Okay, sorry. Okay, that explains my mic. And I also, in my talking to Alexa, I'm like, Alexa, I think I ate something terrible yesterday. And I'm like, I have no toilet paper left. You know, Shatz and I talk about how, we mentioned earlier, if you're on a deserted island, What's the food you want? You want pizza. I also feel it is one of the maybe misunderstood, given the complexity of the variety, the combinations one could have.

24:09So this is really... You're not putting pineapple on your pizza again, Jimmy. But I respect those who do because I respect our friends from Hawaii, but I'm not a pineapple guy. But I do feel there's so many... Hey, Sam, what do you say about that? Is pineapple allowed on pizza? Whatever you want on a pizza is allowed on pizza. out on a pizza. Well, let me ask you one more question, Jimmy. I'm sorry to interrupt you. How many toppings does Mellow Mushroom have available? Wait, topping combinations or just... No, no, no. How many toppings? Not coming. Then you can do the math of how many toppings, how many combinations.

24:42Yes. You got meatball, you got pepperoni, but you guys go crazy. I think we're at like 35 toppings. 35 toppings between proteins, cheeses, and vegetables. Alright, see. Alright, Jimmy, now you can go. I wanted to know. Because I'm going to get into some of these weird toppings. All right. I was only saying there are so many permutations of a pizza. 35 toppings creates millions of potential combinations. $786 trillion, Jimmy, to be exact. Who's counting? And I think if you can nail, so if you can get pizza right, every other segment of our hospitality market, you know what? If you can get it right with pizza, you can do it with the others.

25:20It's a living, breathing product. What else do you sell it with other than pizza? It's more than just pizza. Oh, absolutely. We have munchies. So when you get the munchies, you can order some munchies. Yeah, what are those things you can set in this box over here? So should we pop them open? Yeah, I got to look at this thing. So these are our new rolls. Well, newish. So Mellow Rolls came out about a year ago. So we basically take our legendary pizza dough and crust and create rolls out of it. And I believe that one is our Greek feta roll. Dip it in that creamy pesto sauce. I didn't dip it. Well, it's still great regardless.

25:51Pretty, pretty good. Pretty, pretty. Yeah, so we relaunched our new salad program. I'm going to do it as soon as we're done. I'm going to have lunch. Yeah, me too. I like it. Quick break. Be right back. We got very delicious. Really cheesy, too, huh? Feta in there. There's mozzarella. Yeah. It's like a pizza roll. What do you call it? Rolls. Mellow rolls. Mellow rolls. That's what it is. It's a mellow roll. The mellow? Yeah, it's like, you know, we took that pizza roll, the frozen thing that everyone ate as a kid and say, how do we make this really damn delicious? Yeah, no, it's much better. Yeah.

26:27We'll be right back. We got a little Hot or Not. Presented by our friends at Pizza Cloud. We're going to Branded Quickfire. Also presented by our friends from Pizza Cloud. And then I'll do something else. Also presented by our friends from Pizza Cloud. And then we'll do two more things. And you know what, Jimmy? Also presented by Pizza Cloud. Also known as PhoneCloud.us, Jimmy. So we've got another five things. We'll be here for another three hours. You're not going anywhere, right? I'll be right here, guys. There we go. Three hours. We'll be right back. And stay tuned. Hospitality Hangout. Right back.

27:04Hey, everybody. I got to tell you. We're going to talk about Built. Built Hospitality. Millions of people use Built every day. That's right. Every day to earn rewards on housing and in their neighborhood. But now, now it extends to your restroom. That's where Built Hospitality comes in. Built Hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of. Built's restaurant-facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform alongside an agentic concierge.

27:43That's right, an AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes, using the latest and greatest in AI technology. When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes. Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right, the entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right. That's what Built Hospitality is doing. It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over.

28:23Make every guest feel like a regular every time, not just their first time, every time they're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere. Learn more at builtdining.com backslash hangout. That's builtdining.com backslash hangout. And check out what Bilt Hospitality is going to do for you and your restaurant.

28:47All right, we're back with Hot or Not, okay? Are you ready? Aeson, are you ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. Jimbo, are you ready? Can you explain to Aeson how to play? Yeah, how do we play this game? I'm going to say a word or something, and you say if it's hot or not. Okay. And then Jimmy, with his wisdom from many, many years of being born and raised on the Upper East Side of New York City, he will instill wisdom on us that very few people know. I'm going to opine and we'll dive a little deeper. Yes, yes. Okay, here we go. Ghost kitchens. Are they hot or not, Mr. Ahsan? Ghost kitchens, not hot.

29:22Not hot. Oh, great. He's using the little thing. Is that what it's for? Oh, yeah, right. Thank you. Thank you for using the problem. We had no idea. We had an unlimited budget. I see that. I had no idea what those were for. Thank you for using the props. Pineapple pizza. Is that hot or not? That's hot, man. Put whatever you want on a pizza. Make it yours. That's what it's for. Calling pizza a pie. Is that hot? Ooh. What else are you going to f***ing call it? Pizza? All right. You going with hot? I'm going with hot. Pizza, pizza pie. Let me ask you a question. Jimmy, when you say you're going to order a pizza, Do you say, hey, you guys want to get a couple of pies?

30:05Or do you say, hey, you guys want to get some pizza? Or do you say, hey, you guys want some za? What do you say? I don't say za. I say za. I don't. I know. Julie gets mad at me. She's like, don't ever say that again. Yes. Yes. I don't say za. I will say, I don't think I put the words together. So I might say, you guys want pizza for dinner? Or do you say, how many pies? How many pies? Do you say pizza pie? But I don't put those two words together. I don't say pizza pie. So you say, hey, you guys want pizza? How many pies? How many pies? Right. That's the right way to do it. Yeah. You guys want pizza?

30:34What do you want on your pie? What do you want on your pie? So you say, you want pizza? Not what do you want on your pizza. You switch. I might say, what do you want on your pizza? Do you know Jimmy won't have two meats on his burger? Why? I won't do a bacon. I feel the two meats is diluted. So no bacon burger. No bacon cheeseburger. What if it's the same meat, though? Is it a different meat? Double burger you'll do. I'll do a double burger. I'll do a double burger. My daughter loves a bacon cheeseburger, as does my wife. And I won't do it. And they tease me because I don't want the double meat.

31:05And by the way, since we're talking about pizzas. So that's what I wanted to ask. Will you put pepperoni and meatball on a pizza? I would not. Jimmy Frischling, will you double meat pizza? If I am ordering the pizza, I will not double meat. You won't double meat pizza? But if I'm with a group and it's so often, I'm all in. Because I know that there are so many special pies out there that have double meat. Will you eat it? Yes. So you will eat the double meat pizza. But if I got you double meat burger, you will remove the superfluous meat, as you like to say. If you got me a bacon cheeseburger and it's my own individual, I will remove the bacon.

31:46You'll remove. But if I got a pie here. I might eat the bacon as a side dish. Okay. Now, what about four different types of pig on a pizza? But we have our Mighty Meaty. What's the Mighty Meaty? The Mighty Meaty. So it's got ham. It's got sausage. It's got pepperoni. Not for Jim. No, I'll just say I was at Sam's Pizza out in East Hampton, and the Sam's Pizza comes with a plethora of toppings, including several meats, and I knew the table wanted that pizza, and I'm not going to sit there picking through. So you ate it. I ate it. So if you're asking me, no pizza or double. When did you have this pizza?

32:20What's that? When did you have this pizza? I had it on Saturday, Saturday night. No, you're looking a little peakish. There we go. No, I think this, maybe you shouldn't be eating this double meats, Jimmy, because you're not looking good right now. If the choice is no pizza or multi-meat pizza, take a multi-meat pizza. But if I'm ordering it, I'm not having anything. You're not doing that. I'm not doing it. And I'm not going to be the guy sitting there picking things out of the pizza. It's the slowest hot or not I've ever done. Usually that's the quick fire. The hot or not has now become the slowest segment.

32:49Okay. Hot or not, we're getting back into it, okay? Protein everything. Is protein hot or not? I mean, is it hot? Yes. I mean, I got protein cereal from Corn Flakes. Are you doing protein pizza? Are you putting protein on the pie? Yeah, the Mighty Meaty. That's all protein. How much more protein do you want, man? But you're not adding protein powder. No, that's too much. That's too much for us. Is AI phone ordering, is that hot or not? It is hot. It is. AI ordering in general is hot. AI ordering in general is hot. It's hot. It's hot. But it's hot when it's accurate and when it feels natural. When you think about how the business has changed in restaurants, like Jimmy and I were bartenders.

33:31And back in the day, you know, the phone would ring. He's making drinks, right? You're making drinks. Phone rang. You got to say, Martel, can I get an order? And then he'd have to sit there and be like, okay, you got to make drinks. He's taking writing down an order, right? And I'm thinking like in Duke, same thing. You had to, you know, write down the address. If I asked a bartender to do that today, they would quit. If I said that this is the way you have to do it, you have to answer the phone, you've got to write the order down, put the address in, and you've got to type it all in, and you've got to take care of the service and your guests.

34:09You have to deliver the check to the kitchen. And you've got to do all those things. That's what we used to do. Nobody would do it. Nobody would do it. So the reason I bring that up is technology has completely changed the way we run our restaurants and our businesses. And without the infrastructure of that tech, I say this because I remember when credit cards used to process on the phone line, like the fax machine. Remember that? Oh, yeah. So when you paid at a restaurant, first you had a call, and you had to put an authorization to go with Amex, you know yeah and you had to tell me how much it was then they got a little more sophisticated you could stick in the machine right and but it dialed up right like just think of how far we've come yeah like and if that went down at a restaurant the internet or whatever you know your 5g you would just what would you do well we lose sales we lose business that's why 5g failover is yeah that's the point it's like that's 5g failover your credit cards yeah you're you're you're You're emailing, whatever you're doing.

35:21You're online ordering. Everything is gone. Well, you saw there was an outage on ChatGPT last week, and millions of AI agents went down, and work stopped for a lot of organizations. Literally, I heard people on social media, like they were ready. Work just stopped, they said. They said when ChatGPT went down, productivity in America dropped 50%. Everyone's just like, I... I thought that was during the World Cup. Well, that also. That also. All right. As I say, which is the, as I said, this is the hot or not, slow hot or not. The mellow mushroom. You know what? We're taking mellow here. We're taking a little mellow.

36:02Yeah, that's right. The mellow mushroom. Is drone delivery hot or not? I mean, you're a strategy guy. You're transformational. Drone delivery is hot, but it's expensive. It's expensive. The infrastructure that you need to actually execute it well is expensive. And I don't think we're there yet fully as a industry on the regulations around it. Are you willing if somebody came to you and said, well, you try this in a store, would you would you would you try it? Oh, I absolutely would. You would try. I absolutely would. Yes. Because we don't do in-house delivery. So we contract that out. I saw some really interesting that I couldn't believe.

36:39And they said Amazon now has drone delivery available, like in a lot of cities. Yeah. And then he showed on social media. It was in like Houston. Oh, the guy in the pool. It was dropping his bag right in the hot tub in his backyard. And that's why I don't want pizza going in the pool. It's not there yet. It was close. You know what? As he's on said, we're going to take it slow. We're going to pay the pace to be slow. You don't want the pace to be slow. Where's my pizza, sir? We delivered it. It's in the pool, but we delivered it. It's your house, right? By the way, that's it. And they got it close.

37:19I mean, it was pretty funny. So don't go that way. But you can test it, though. Get our friends at Supply Caddy to develop waterproof. Well, that's honestly, Supply Caddy should develop waterproof packaging for the mishaps. It's like a life jacket for the pizza box. So drone delivery, it's hot, but it's going to take a little time. I agree. And what about, I mean, a company like you guys, Mellow Mush, I mean, social media has got to be a big value prop for you. It's such a fun brand. And it's so iconic. It's so cool. It just says, like, grateful, dead, psychedelic. It just reeks of all that, you know?

37:54It reeks. Is social media driving, like, doing LTOs on social media? Like, is that a big thing for you guys? Yeah, when we launch LTOs, we have a social strategy that goes with it. You do? So it's a big part. It's absolutely a huge part. I mean, I think our other friends in the industry have kind of paved the way in a lot of that. The creators are a lot more easier to work with. The infrastructure is there. I mean, our friends at TikTok, you know, meta and everything. So, you know, social strategy is our strategy when we launch MLT. So it's still hot. It's hot. Yeah, I don't want to, because I don't want to forget.

38:27I forgot we're playing hot or not. This is hot or not. That's right. Jimmy was getting this confused with the quick fire. Yes. Because it's so slow. Jimmy's like, you know, Chatsy, your quick fire is the slowest segment until you started slowing down the hot or not. So, Jimmy, I don't know if you remember any of the answers because it took so long. What do you want to opine on? And I'll let you, because I talk for so long, I'll let you pick more than one if you want. I want to just, I want to go back. I don't want you to feel left out. I do not feel left out. I feel the love on set. Okay. I want to go back to when Shatzi mentioned Ghost Kitchens, you gave it the not.

39:03And I guess if we wordsmith that, if we brought in a clever marketer and thought about rebranding, with respect to just how important off-premises to me a ghost kitchen if we re if we reframe it it's great operators who are operating with purely 100 dine out yes and could you envision as you think about your menu launching whether it's items or even a brand that was leveraging maybe the the ingredients the infrastructure the the the supervision all of that but for example of these rolls, I could envision you guys rolling out, pun intended. You just did there? I could envision you guys almost rolling out different types of sandwiches or wrap because, you know, you already have the infrastructure.

39:50But at the end of the day, I'm not trying to pull you into the idea of a restaurant or another brand that doesn't have the in-store dining. But if I started to tweak it like that, does it resonate? Or if it's our four walls, it's our brand. Jimmy is also not just the finance guy. He's also the marketing guy. He's an ideas man. Can you just throw him a bone? I think he's still saying not. No, no. Just tell him you like the idea. I'll go halfway. Halfway. I like the idea. My biggest challenge is shared kitchens. I don't want shared kitchens with other brands because I think that dilutes how you can train and execute a product.

40:27Yep. And I don't want different formats for our brand that are such a big departure from the experience that we try to offer. We're a full service. We're an experiential concept. Ghost Kitchen strips all of that out and really makes it a commodity type product. So I think there's value there in certain markets, but it's not going to be our primary vehicle. Chatsy, I like his answer. Well, you know, Jimmy, I got to tell you something. It's very important. I think it really is. And I'm going to say to you again here today now, okay, that without the phones working and the Internet and all of that, you got nothing, Jimmy.

41:10That's the bottom line. We are all, if the chat GPT went down and people are like killing themselves. And I mean, if the technology. We had a friend of ours who took over a legacy property and he and his team, big project, reconfigured it, opened up a bevy of restaurants in this facility without necessarily realizing that the pre-existing structure was Wi-Fi incongruent with the Wi-Fi signal and cell signal. So basically, they'd spent a lot of money in something that was not welcoming of what guests expect with respect to digital. Right. So it became the after the fact. So to your point, Chatsy, when you're opening a new unit, you have to be with intentionality.

41:57Think about how are your guests because they expect to be connected when they're dining in a restaurant, whether it's the babysitter they want to make sure or business or otherwise. They don't they don't want to be if they want to turn their phone off, they'll turn their phone off. They don't want you to turn it off because you didn't think about the boosting of Wi-Fi or that you're blocking cell signals. I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. I lost you 20 minutes ago. I have no idea what you're talking about. When we look at real estate, you know what we do look for? How's my sales thing going?

42:23I'm going to look at site selection. That was my point. He said it better and more succinctly. I just remembered you say something about roles. And then I thought. Now he's in a food coma. I'm like, I see his mouth moving, but I don't know what he's saying. I have role envy. You do. All right, listen. Let's go to the greatest segment of all podcasting. I don't have to tell you what it is. Jimmy, you already know what it is also, right? So you're not going to tell anybody? The branded quickfire. The branded quickfire. Lightning round, okay? Don't think too hard. First thing comes to your mind, okay?

42:58Ready. All right. What do you get? The Chief Transformational Strategic Executive Vice President. Did I get your title somewhat right? Close. Yeah, I got a couple of keywords in there. Yeah, you got keywords in there. What do you order at Mellow Mushroom? Oh, holy shiitake add steak. Wait, wait. Holy shiitake add steak? Add steak? That's right. By the way, that was said with authority. Oh, it's not even close. Every time. It's actually holy shiitake is right there, just not without steak. So, not with steak. Well, why? What do you mean? Well, why? Why? Why steak am I adding? Well, holy shiitake is a vegetarian pizza.

43:38Okay. I'm not a big vegetarian guy. I love my meats. I'm like this guy over here. No, he likes his meats. He's just not one at a time. So he would like the Holy Hitake. He would actually like the Holy Hitake. Yes. That's my go-to. All right. And what is your favorite pizza topping? Ooh, favorite pizza topping? Jalapenos. I like spicy. Jimmy, is that legal? Hold on. Legal. Legal? Jalapenos? Jalapenos. Spicy. Oh, yeah. I've never even... You put a jalapeno on a pizza? I have had pizzas with jalapeno. It's not my go-to, but I would welcome that little. I like jalapenos and sandwiches. Well, let me ask you something.

44:15What is your go-to when you order pizza? Are you a topping guy or no? I'm not. I am. A, my traditional order would be a plain pie. Just plain pie. I like a grandma pie. Right. Just a well-done pie. Well-done pie. Do you say well-done? I would say crispy on the bottom. I like it a little crispy on the bottom. Or I would go with, I can go purist pepperoni. I could go meatball. I could go sausage. All right. Listen. But we know what you're. Yes. And what is your go-to pie? He just told you. No, topping. No, but I was not mellow mushrooms. Oh, sorry. You guys have created like regular. Are you just like...

44:53When I go to any other kind of pizza joint, I get the cheese pizza. That is the best way to evaluate whether it's a good pie or not. Plain cheese is the best way to get it. So then having said that, I mean, you've got 136-ish stores? 162. 162 stores and growing and growing 163 yep wait wait 165 165 just open okay for someone who's never been what should they get like should they go cheese should they get a regular plain pizza or should they go with this holy shiitake with the steak look i would get our mighty meaty because i think that's a cloud uh crowd pleaser and then i would get jimmy would Never have the mighty meaty.

45:35And then for people like Jimmy, I would get the Holy Shiitake. We introduced this pizza about 10 years ago, and it's our top four bestsellers. After cheese and pepperoni. Did you bring that in as an LTO, and it did so well, or no, it was always strategic to be on the menu? No, everything comes in as an LTO. Everything starts in LTO. Everything starts in LTO. We see how it does, and some things deserve it. Like the rolls deserve a permanent place on the menu, and so did the Holy Shiitake. And do you say sometimes that it may not deserve a permanent piece, but it could come back? Oh, yeah. We bring pizzas back.

46:05Like the McRib? Like our tie-dye, actually. Asian flavors. We had an LTO about 10 years ago, brought it back about three years ago as a revamped LTO. So we bring things back all the time from the archives. Can I ask you a question? It's personal. Uh-oh. Is a hot dog a sandwich? No. No. Is a calzone a sandwich? Yes. If I take two pieces of pizza and I smoosh them together like that, cheese on the cheese, is that a sandwich? It is. It is. Jimmy, what do you think about that? I agree with my friend, my new friend on the hot dog, that we agree it's hot dog is not a sandwich. And I respect his opinion, his answer, but I will disagree.

46:51Calzone is not a sandwich. You take two pieces of pizza and you mush them together. It's a calzone. You got two pieces of pizza that are mushed together. You don't have a sandwich. What do you mean? What is a sandwich? It's a pizza sandwich. Two pieces of bread with stuff in the middle. Yeah, Jimmy. Thank you. Do you understand what he just said? Do you hear what he just said? Yes. What did you say? Two pieces of bread. Okay, if I take pizza, pizza, what is that? It's a sandwich. I'm not there. I'm not there. The intention of the pizza was not intended to be a sandwich. You can't just make it a sandwich.

47:22We can't have everyone just deciding what is. You can't just make everything a sandwich. Okay? It'd be chaos. Well, everything's not a sandwich, Jimmy. Like on the beginning. Yeah, hot dogs. No, not a sandwich. Caesar salad's not a sandwich, Jimmy. You would say take two pieces of pizza, put it together, stuff it with Caesar salad. You have a Caesar salad sandwich. Yes, it is. I'd say no, it's not. Of course it is. You have two pieces of pizza stuffed with Caesar salad. I got to tell you. Let me tell you something. You know what's delicious? A Caesar salad sandwich. We actually have a Caesar salad pizza.

47:50Yeah, that's great. That's available on the locals only menu at some of our locations. And that I'm okay. I'm very good with that. So you'll put salad on your pizza, but no double meats. No double meats. I'll put a lot of vegetables. Let me ask you this. How do you take your bagel? Wow. Curveball. Toasted. Everything seasoning. Everything toasted bagel. Everything toasted bagel. Plain cream cheese. Plain cream cheese. Plain cream cheese. That's it. All right. That's it. I don't need lox. I don't need capers. Traditionist. I'm a traditionalist. And then what's the last thing that you looked up on the, like, Googled, for example, or, you know, searched for?

48:28The last thing I looked up? Yeah, like, what was it? Oh, my gosh. I don't know if I can say it out loud. Well, you can say whatever you want. What? Even if it's dirty, I'd love to hear if it's crazy, weird, and dirty. I needed some new underwear. You need some underwear? So that's what I Googled last night. So last night, where did you get underwear? Huh? You're like Rain Man. Yeah. Where'd you go, Kmart? No, Amazon. Kmart. So Amazon got you underwear delivered today. Yeah, so I could be on the show and have clean underwear. And have clean underwear. I mean, there's nothing that you can't get.

48:59So you got, I mean, I remember my backpack broke. I was traveling where I was traveling. I went to the hotel. I went on Amazon. I had it in an hour. That's right. Yeah. In an hour. Before I came to my house today. Yeah. So you had no underwear yesterday. We'll let the audience think about it. with their own imagination. He didn't have a pair that he was looking forward to wearing on the show today. That's right. You are? It was a special pair. Special pair. So what'd you get, like Hanes? You get Calvin Klein? What'd you get? Well, that's for me to know and for us to find out. You were the one who started with the whole thing.

49:30Well, you asked me the question. I said, what's the last thing you Googled? I didn't, I mean, you could have lied. You know what? Esan is an honest man. I'm an honest man. He could have given a lot of other answers. He gave the honest one. Apparently we have to wrap up. Yes. Esan, this was awesome. Really. Thank you for having me, guys. I love your story about going from the world of consulting, you know, falling in love with the brand and said, you know what? I'm going to be part of this and contribute to its growth, this 50-year-old brand, and here you are. Love it. Congrats on everything that's going on with Mellow Mushroom.

50:00Thank you. Really excited. Thank you for bringing all this. Yes, let's eat. It was not easy for me to sit here and control myself, but as soon as we sign off, I will enjoy the bevy of gifts and stuff that our friend brought us. Jesse, close us out, please. Yeah, I got to tell you, if we want to check, if you want to order from Mellow Mushroom, is it mellomushroom.com? Mellow Mushroom.com. And check for one of your local stores. 160-169 just opened. Is that breaking news? That's breaking news. 169 has just opened. Yeah, I got to tell you, check it out. And listen, thank you to our friends at Pizza Cloud for bringing this podcast to life.

50:39And phonecloud.us. Thank you, phonecloud.us. A little, you know, I'm reading Pizza Cloud here, Jimmy. But I'm going up there with Phone Cloud. They're so good with pizza that they decided they've got to be good for more people. So you know what? Pizza Cloud, we love it, and they still use the name. Now it's Phone Cloud for everybody. So what should I be saying? I think Phone Cloud. Phonecloud.us? Yes. Should I be saying that? Sure. All right. Cheers, everybody. Cheers, everyone. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys.