Welcome to Top Floor, the podcast where we amplify discussions with CEOs and ChIS Executives driving the future of small and medium-sized businesses, get ready to be inspired and formed and empowered as we delve into the unique minds and journeys of these executive leaders shaping tomorrow's business landscape. I am your host, Dr. Krista Crawford. In addition to being an adjunct business professor for two university MBA programs, I am also a Vistage Chair. I coach leaders in peer advisory groups and in one-to-one executive sessions to make better decisions that lead to better businesses and better lives. My guest today is Brody Tenet, owner of Roganart, Bistro, Bakery and Cafe. They trash in small batches. Warning, you just may be hungry after this session. Brody, thank you so much for taking time. In the restaurant business, time is of the essence. So tell us, how did you start Roganart, European, Bakery, Bistro, Cafe? How did it come about? Actually, it's one of the oldest bakeries in Austria. We actually brought it to the United States back in 2017, started in the Baltimore area and have evolved the concept as you know there's a little bit different eating habits, let's say between Europe and America. You know, used to be very, the concept was a very much an authentic bread baking concept in Austria and it's transformed and now it's breads, pastries, sandwiches, espressos, coffee basins. It's evolved but it's an authentic European bakery at heart. And what prompted you to bring this oldest bakery to the US and westernize it? Well actually, my partner is from Austria and Serbia. He moved here back in 2017 and then I met him and my partners and them and them pop off. And when we met, we realized that the concept and the idea and the bakery business is, you know, so let's say fills a big niche in the food industry that we need to grow this concept. We need to need to find more locations, we need to bring this to other markets and that's where that's where we started the team up. So you started just a couple of years before something we always talk about COVID. What learning came out of that experience that you've been able to transfer and keep currently, if any? Well, you need to be, you know, open-minded and nimble, I'd say, because it's, you know, obviously restaurants stopped having people come in to dine in. There was a lot more people wanted to order online or a curbside and change the operations completely. And, you know, which changes the way that you're serving customers. But also, how are you reaching customers? You know, people would, you know, would go to the shopping center. People would go drive and see you, you know, but a lot of that wasn't happening. So you got to, okay, how do you reach out to these people? How do you get touched with them? You know, and then one, how do you actually serve them? You know, how do you make an environment that can also withstand something, you know, as working wild as COVID once was? We each happen to be in the Metro Baltimore area. And I know during that time, particularly in the restaurant business, there was a big labor shortage. How did you overcome that? What did you do? We were just really adamant about, you know, always hiring and finding good people and paying them extremely well. You know, you can never pay somebody that is a good employee or a good asset to the team too much. There's always been a shortage of people and, you know, especially during COVID, when kind of things change, people come back to the workforce, people need to find employees. It was really competitive and really hard time to find people. So it was really even more important to find those right people and, you know, and compensate them, you know, at market or above market to make sure you get the right people that you want on your team, especially when you're growing, you need to have good, good people and good people on your team to help you grow. You know, sometimes we overcomplicate it, so it comes down to hiring good people and taking care of them. Yes, exactly, 100%. There's a phrase that employees want to be seen, heard and valued. And if you can manage that, then you can keep a really strong team. So thanks for reinforcing that. Restaurants generally have a pretty tight profit margin. What are some tips you have for those entrepreneurs out there starting their own restaurant of some type to manage their finances early on? How did you make that happen? Really understand them first, right? Understand what your big cost drivers are. You know, obviously, you know, your people are very important, right? You want to make sure you get the right people, but you also make sure that you're, you know, managing them appropriately, right? There when they when the business needs them, you know, also, you know, obviously, understanding your cost of goods, you understand what products are buying, where you can maybe buy other products, what other vendors you can potentially use, and how do you limit waste? How do you limit, you know, over usage of some items and maybe finding other items that can also be purchased potentially cheaper. So, you know, those are the major two items. And then, you know, obviously, a lot of other things that go on as well into a restaurant. So, it's just really understanding, you know, and both keeping appropriately. So, you understand where your expenses are going. It's very important before you can tackle. How do you approach them first step? You gotta just, you gotta understand them. So, things back to tween age, early teenage Brody, did you think you'd be owning and managing bakery? No, that was definitely not the goal when I was young. But I've always been an entrepreneur. It's been in our family, you know, coming up long line of entrepreneurs in our family. And my grandfather actually owns restaurants in Maryland as well. So, it's in the blood, but that was not the idea. I know I love food. I'm a big foodie. And, you know, when I find, you know, something that I think works and something I think is a really good idea. I was like, I'm gonna jump in. I'm gonna try to see what we can make out of this. So, you know, I think, you know, I fell in love with the restaurant industry. It's a tough, it's a really time, a lot of time spent to be in that industry. But it is a very, I think, an awesome company and awesome concept. I think we want to see how far we can take it. So, what was your goal at that time? What did you think you would be doing? Well, I thought it'd be a majorly baseball player, but that didn't happen. Darn. I really tried, you know, I tried to take that as far as I could as well. But, you know, some dreams aren't meant to happen. So, yeah, I mean, I went into the workforce and got into the commercial real estate world. And that's kind of evolved into the into the bakery world. That's how I met my partner. And we decided to, you know, we loved working with each other and decided like, hey, this is a really cool concept, really cool idea. People are loving it. People are, people are coming, people want more of it. So, yeah, it's, it's kind of evolved into now a mission to, to grow this concept. I want to circle back to this idea of hiring good people. When you're looking for someone to work in one of your shops and one of your storefronts, what are you looking for? Do you have any special skills or attitudes or techniques that you look for? I think the most important thing is somebody that is really like dedicated, you know, somebody that wants to take ownership. I think is the most important thing. If you're going to do anything, whether you are, you know, cleaning toilets, right? You want to be, if I'm handling that task, I want to be the best person at cleaning that toilet, right? Like, we want to be able to take ownership, whatever the task is, that they're going to really take ownership of that and take pride in what they do and want to make something better. And I think that's, you know, a very, a very valuable team member is, is somebody that takes ownership responsibility and a lot of initiative to, to make something, you know, if you sit around, always wait, you know, for things to happen, things never seem to happen, you know, proactive people, I think, you know, get very far ahead. How would you describe the culture at Rogan Art? I think it is people love to work here. It's a fun environment. It's a growing environment. People are, you know, getting to expand their careers in multiple different avenues and departments of the business. People are, you know, it's, if you ever come to one of the cafes, it is a nice environment that people come in. It's always lively. There's, you know, it was always fun music, obviously some amazing products. So I think that the synergies of people and the environment inside the stores makes a really fun, enjoyable work atmosphere. Do you offer any like gluten free products? Do you, how do you, how do you handle those that are looking for a restricted diet? Gluten free is really hard in the bakery. But in regards to we're trying to be creative in different products. And we, we just created a vegan croissant, which is really amazing. It's, it is hard to make a good tasting vegan croissant. Trust me, we tried for a long time. We just rolled it out a couple months ago. And with that, we also have a vegan sandwich on that vegan croissant. So trying to get us more vegan options, which I think is a really, you know, creative way to, to reach more people that are trying to have a more, you know, diet restricted, you know, it's people have diet restrictions, you know, trying to accommodate that. Yes, some of my vegan friends, their mouths are watering right now. The thought of a vegan croissant. That's wonderful. So what primary leadership lessons have you learned since you've started your happy if not be afraid to get into something you don't know, right? And you know, don't look at it as a, it's asked me to look at it as a opportunity to learn something become an expert. I think capable people can always learn something new. It can grow their horizons. So I think that was a learning curve with a lot of the industry, you know, as things you need to learn, but like a person that is willing and capable, you know, you can, you can do, you can do a lot in a short amount of time. Do you have any particular role models when you were growing up? You may have already mentioned some, I don't know, coaches, teachers, family members, or people out in the industries that you followed that really motivated you. Yeah, I mean, my, my family comes from like a long line of entrepreneurs. My mom owned and operated a shop for 50, 50 years in Columbia in Ellicott City and really to see that the dedication and the ownership and the other that I talk about, I think it's something that takes the pride and ownership of what they do that every single thing, you know, you got to make sure you touch and make sure it's, it's, you know, it's what you want. And, you know, my, my father, the same, ran and operated multiple, Midas auto repair shops throughout C.C. in Maryland. And, you know, running 10 different stores across multiple states, you have to really, you know, be capable of training and bringing on good people. And, yeah, I think, you know, those two people as good role models growing up to, to kind of see different entrepreneurs in different industries. How do you, you know, how do you run a business? You know, from a young age is pretty cool. Let's look into your crystal ball. Oh, correct. Let's look into your crystal ball. What do you see going forward in terms of challenges for your industry and opportunities in your industry? Challenges, there's, there's a lot of options. You know, there's so many, you see so many restaurants that come out there so many different options people go eat and we, you know, we always say that it's a, you know, it's a competition for, you know, battle of stomach, right? Like, people are going to go eat, you know, whether they eat, you know, breakfast with, with us or another concept, you know, we're not just feeding it to the bakers or feeding against people on breakfast. And if you want lunch item, people won't call feed. And for, you know, in regards to opportunities, I think that, you know, there's plenty of places right now that are reshifting, you know, COVID still having its lingering effects. And there are still groups that are still companies and concepts that are, you know, changing of all things. And I think that there is still a niche. And still, we bring something very different to the marketplace that people really enjoy. Obviously, it's working here. So to try it out in other markets that are similar, similar markets and similar areas across the country, I think it's going to do well. And I think people are really going to enjoy, you know, enjoy this in other places as well. So what have you learned about yourself during this journey since 2017? Oh, I learned that there is, you know, patients, I guess, because we're moving so fast, opening so many of these new stores. But there's so many things that you want to happen, right? That, you know, it takes a long time to to move them out to move a mountain, right? And you need a team, people. And the more that you grow, the harder it is to move that, you know, so patients and really diligence, I think, is two things that I've I've learned in this journey. We've already talked about time in the restaurant industry. Tips, can you offer the listeners in terms of time management? How do you balance it all? I think it comes most important from planning. Really understand what you want and take a step back, understand what do you want to do? And I break my, my goals down by a yearly basis, then I break it down. Like, what are the things I want to do this year? What are the things I want to do this quarter? And then every single week, I create a plan for the entire week of like, what are things I want to do this week to actually get to those goals and start chipping away, right? I got to think patience is very important, because you want these big goals, but it takes you a long time to get there. The only way to do it is by chipping away kind of one smaller goal at a time. And I think once you do that, you can actually create your calendar, create your schedule of what you want to do when and prioritize it. But first, before you do any of that, you have to have your big goals mapped out of what you want to do. And then start breaking it down when you want to do it and prioritize it. So your big wish book, let's look five years out. How many rugged arts would you like to have going in five? Well, there's a lot on the on the horizon that needs to be done to get to that point. But we'd like to be a national brand. And, you know, my crazy to say that we would have, you know, 100 locations, I don't think so. But we'd like to have 100 plus and see what happens. You know, there's a lot of things that that are, you know, challenges as we talked about in the way of doing that. But, you know, I think that's very possible. And to get to 100 plus, how are you going to scale that? What are your steps that you're going to take to scale that up to 100? Well, the most important thing is to really understand, I think, and document exactly what the mission of the company isn't exactly how do you operate to get to that mission, right? Like, what exactly is the concept? What exactly was it needed to to function at a high level, and really create that in a very systematic way that can repeat that process over and over again, and make sure that you deliver the high quality, deliver the, you know, the right service. And you deliver, you know, these things that make a really good restaurant experience, really have that laid out as detailed as possible that it's very repeatable. Every time you trip up a new store, you want to make sure that everybody has the exact same experience here, but you wouldn't say Houston, Texas, right? You want to make sure that they're going to have that same experience, you know, and to have that conformity in regards to the operations is really important. Along the way, is there anybody that you've read? Is there anyone that you follow? Is there any particular business leader that when you see a quote from them, it catches your attention? Um, I don't know if it's necessarily anyone in particular. I think that there's a lot of companies that have really grown, especially in the last 20 years, that have really made a mark for themselves and a lot of it's on strategy, product strategy, and their way that they're marketing to their customers. And I think that a lot of these, these companies have done a really good job of marketing become top of mind. And a lot of those companies, you know, Lulu Lemon and Trader Joe's, these type of new concepts that are like, okay, it's a household name, everybody, everybody knows of them, right? Just having those, you know, that brand awareness is like an amazing, you know, marketing team and a brand strategy that I think is really, really impressive, that just those type of concepts come to mind when you think of brands being able to really capture a place in people's, you know, top of mind. If you were to start your business again, if you were to start over again, would you do anything differently? Ooh, I mean, it's really easy to know what you know now and try to do that again. You know, if I knew everything I knew now, sure, there's a lot of ways to save money and, you know, to find the, you know, the right people and, you know, what location should be done, you know, things like that. But I would say, I mean, I'm really proud of what our team has done in the last few years. So I wouldn't change anything. But obviously, there's always learning curves and, you know, what you know when you're when you're 80, you wish you knew when you were 20, right? So yeah, I mean, it's we've we've done a lot of progress, but obviously, we're always improving. So every time that we open a new store, every time we open up a new channel or kind of, you know, evolve something, we're always kind of learning from that experience, past experiences. So we talked about a lot of different things. What have I not asked you or what information would you like for the listeners to know that we haven't brought forward? Well, we're obviously we're we're we're European bakery Bichro Cafe. But just that, you know, we pride ourselves on making really great products in small batches, so baked daily small batches, and really want to provide a really cool experience for our customers. So when you come in, you want to feel like we have the third place, right, you go home, you go to work, places you can decompress, meet with your friends, and meet with your colleagues, and enjoy some really good food, you know, made locally sourced and small batches. And, you know, have a really fun experience. So hopefully that, you know, give some more context. And, you know, if you haven't tried us out, you would love to, you know, have you come in and try it out and think that you guys will really appreciate it. And what is your website for people to find the various locations? So it's www.brokenart.com. Perfect. And in case we've enticed anyone in any of those locations that would like to come and work for you, what's the best way they can get in touch with you? Yeah, right on our website, there to join our team button at the top right corner. You can choose which location, excuse me, that you would like to join. And we'd love to have you, we are always looking for good people. So, you know, if people are looking to, you know, to grow and to be in a company that is growing, you would love to talk to you. Fantastic. Brody, thank you so much for your time again. And I commit, I am going to one of your Bstro, your PMB stroke cafes, and having a little bite. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely.
