you know when barack obama left the

white house to go pick up five guys

we're gonna go get some burgers 41.

that's what makes five guys a treat and

special

john eckford the ceo of five guys europe

five guys has a global cult following

five guys burgers are fries it was

banging covent garden was the very first

five guys outside of the us we knew that

we weren't gonna be advertising we're

entirely relying on someone tasting a

great burger and crying and telling

their neighbors or their friends it has

to be that's [ __ ] fantastic that

covent garden location sold more than

any in the world it did yeah by far i'm

responsible for 225 restaurants now how

do you stop getting a little bit sloppy

and complacent we've actually gotten

better

the key to that is

[Music]

as the ceo of a business that's gone

through such chaos when was your hardest

time

so i had two young children the fact is

that there were moments where they woke

up and needed both their parents and i

wasn't there

you'll hurt the people you care about

in ways that you don't intend

in ways that you don't understand

so without further ado i'm stephen

bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo

i hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this yourself

[Music]

john

i've i've read quite extensively through

your story and um

i guess my first question is when you

when you think back to your pre-twenties

right

what is that what are the most important

things from that era of your life that

shaped your perspective

and approach

to the world and to business

today

wow

well first i grew up in a very

counter-cultural isolationist family

so we didn't we didn't watch tv we

didn't celebrate birthdays or holidays

and

um

i kind of got up at five a.m to practice

violin for an hour

before school

and had music lessons after school every

day

and

so it was very

different

and i think i always i think i grew up

feeling different with this kind of

[Music]

longing to

have a sense of belonging um and that

was always something that

i was looking for in my

professional life i think

as well

i would have been a fourth generation

doctor if i had gone into medicine

and my father

told me that the profession was changing

and it wasn't so much about patients and

um and doctors and kind of the

relationship that can develop in terms

of health and bringing your you know

your health to your doctor and getting

advice and it was changing in america

dramatically and so he he said you know

don't uh don't do that you know i'm not

encouraging you to do medicine so i knew

i had to kind of find a different

role in life

and i read um anne rand in high school

um and not suggesting that uh

that she's gotten everything right but

one one interesting thing that she did

propose was that there's there could be

something noble

in business be you know being a

successful entrepreneur

could be

a noble thing and

my so the the kind of orientation from

my family was

make sure that you do something

important or

in your life and that meant you know

taking care of other people or doing

something that was

had some

greater purpose to it than kind of just

making money

but that seed of a thought that

being in business could actually be

a noble profession and you actually

could do something important to make

people's lives better um and take care

of people in a different way in business

was kind of i think an important penny

to drop for me um when i was when i was

18. um but yeah it was a it was a it was

a definitely a different

upbringing than than most and that that

sense of belonging is something i've

been searching for my whole life

do you think you've been searching for

that sense of belonging more so than the

average person

um

i think so you know i i think if you

have something in abundance you take it

for granted maybe um and it was

something that i definitely didn't have

and and that i um and i very much felt

um you know an outsider looking in um

and i i saw this you know other other

people had community other kids had

community and

and kind of broad-based friendships and

and a sense of really kind of relaxed

belonging and i kind of always had this

kind of

anxious drive that you know looking for

that um

and you know i think business was um

you know certainly lived that out in the

business world um as well

you you

had a um

quite a journey through

banking and being a

being what we'd call like a a regional

councillor and all these things and

eventually you you came back to the uk

kind of where i wanted to to start this

this story off um in 2010 i believe

that's right um your good friend sir

charles dunstan who was the founder of

carphone warehouse um and you went into

business originally and then you went

went on in search of

um

a new business to sort of partner with

him on

and that's kind of where the five guys

stories begins

yes well i i had been a student here a

long time ago and lived in a

tiny

basement one room flat much smaller than

this studio is um and uh charles lived

upstairs with his his sister and

girlfriend and they invited me up for

drinks one day and they pretty much

adopted me

for my year abroad um and we went to

their parents home in cambridge and to

norfolk for for a holiday and um they so

they really made england feel like a

home uh and i always was

always my ambition to return with a

non-student's budget

to england

and so the chance came in 2010

and moved back here

and charles had just spun talk talk out

from carphone warehouse

and so i guess you can't be ceo of two

publicly traded businesses so he became

chairman of both and ceo of neither

and began thinking a bit more as an

investor and

we got to talking and thinking what's

the

next

big business that opportunity that we we

could leverage his experience in

reputation in retail

but we wanted something that amazon

wasn't so much a threat to

as electronics

online felt like a real threat

to that industry segment and we thought

food and beverage has got to be

a segment that's a bit more protected

from the online world

you kind of have to show this is before

delivery kind of blew up you kind of

have to show up and and and eat your

food where it's prepared more um so we

thought that that would protect uh you

from

the online competitive world and but we

didn't know anything about food and

beverage neither of us did um and so we

went looking for a great

concept that wasn't in the uk that we

thought could bring that expertise we

could bring the

kind of operational uk property

knowledge and hiring practices and

market knowledge and partner with

someone who would bring that food and

beverage experience into the into the

proposition we talked to so many u.s

concepts that weren't here

and eventually kind of collided with the

morel family there actually are five

brothers

and their mom and dad so there's seven

in the family

but five brothers who are the five guys

who founded the business

and they were looking to go

global having pretty much allocated the

u.s amongst their franchisees

how many so how many other concepts do

you think you looked at and was there

any near misses was there any that you

thought you know what maybe any other

concepts that you nearly committed your

your life to yeah so um we talked with a

lot of different concepts and um still

in contact with a lot of those uh those

concepts um and some of them have been

really helpful in terms of um building

the five guys business here so you know

if you can use

insight from another concept that maybe

isn't a competitor isn't here um that

can be really helpful and some of those

still may may come to play um

then why five guys

well i think it starts with the product

um you know it's it's such a simple

fantastic product you know it's just

burgers you know the menu is like

shockingly stark i mean it is burgers

and fries and that's it

um and but it you know when you when you

take a bite of a five guys burger when

you when you when you have fries that

are cooked exactly right

it is it's magical i mean it's and it's

fantastic it's a world world-beating

product and

that was that was i think you know

there's so many concepts have had gone

like broad you know like um you know

there's so many concepts in america like

you can get everything in the in the

menus like a bible and you know you kind

of flip through the section you're like

how can they possibly be preparing

repairing all this stuff at the top of

the game and um and five guys was going

you know completely against that which

was you know everybody told the morel

family you know you have to have a salad

if you're gonna you know be successful

you have to have you know chicken you

know you can't just have a burger on

your menu and they're like

when we add other stuff to our menu it

just

like

blows our mind we don't we lose focus on

making a great burger and so i think

part of their genius has been

focus you know we're going to do just

one thing and do it really well

i mean that was the thesis for the

founding of the business was if you're

going to have your mom over and and make

make burgers you know what would you do

you would buy the highest quality

ingredients you possibly can you'd make

everything fresh um

that was i think the morels were so far

ahead of their time when they founded

the business in 1986 because there's

literally not a freezer

in

the five guys equipment infrastructure

everything is obsessively fresh

and right before the we we signed the

joint venture to bring them here there

was a study done that said the number

one criteria that anyone across the uk

looked for in determining where you were

going to eat was was the freshness of

the food

and whether it was white tablecloth or

at a fast food place it didn't matter

that was the most important criteria and

that was like the morales thesis they

you know not everything had to be

freshly prepared that day or it went um

it's interesting because conceivably

it seems to me like they were very much

at the right place at the right time

there was this macro change in public

perception and awareness around food and

what's going into food

organic and vegan all these kinds of

these conversations around food started

to emerge which seems to have hurt a lot

of big brands um in a very uh

fatal way whether it's in

the sugar based fizzy drink industry or

whether it's in the fast food industry

um it's conceivable that the world could

have gone another way maybe we could

have doubled down on liking

even faster food that was has more crap

in it right yes um so i just i just

wonder how important you think timing

was in in their thesis catching public

that sort of public wave coming into

shore no i think that's i think that's

very i think you're very right about

that you know the the our fries have

three ingredients in it potatoes the

peanut oil we cook it in and a dash of

salt

some of our competitors you know have

like 16 19 ingredients in their fries

like

what do you

what else could there be in in fries you

know so from our perspective our you

know our fries start as potatoes in the

beginning of the day they're hand washed

hand-cut

and then twice cooked to a very specific

standard

and you know just keeping it again just

keeping it simple um and i think i think

it's very much

um i think they

they position themselves in front of a

tidal wave without without knowing it um

and that that trend of freshness um i

think was a huge um a huge win for the

family i think the other thing that they

did which was

very early on trend even early from when

we found it here in the uk was

customization

and having something exactly the way

that you want it

we have 15 free toppings which means

that you can have every burger 250 000

ways just by the combinations of those

those toppings

and everything is made by hand just for

you we don't cook anything until stephen

walks in and says you know this is the

burger that i want um now the

challenging thing is is that as soon as

you've placed your order

there's 249 999 wrong ways to make your

burger um so the customer one of the one

aspect of customer service is getting

that right the first time um but

customization was new i think i mean in

america you know it goes back to harry

met sally and the way she ordered her

salad in the you know in the restaurant

um you know is um you know

an example of how americans want things

just the way they want them um but i

think that's been a newer thing to

europe you know they like the chef

should know you know chef tell me how i

should order this um and saying no no

it should be exactly the way you want it

um and i think that trend is the

certainly the millennials are very much

onto that you know i want it exactly the

way that i want it and five guys is

really ready for that the whole machine

is like um

uh

i liken it to putting a a ferrari engine

on top of an ox cart and then racing it

around a track so we're very old school

very analog in our

product in our production it's very

manual um everything's handmade

and yet we can do

you know a 4 000 pound hour

out of uh you know of oxford circus

making

you know burgers and fries um you'll see

kind of 25 30 people running around

madly behind an open kitchen

making your food i think that was the

other secret because

five guys doesn't advertise so there

literally is no way for us to tell

someone who doesn't know five guys what

we're about or you know what makes us

different or special um we're entirely

relying on someone walking into the

restaurant

seeing how the food is prepared tasting

a great burger and fry and then telling

their their neighbors or their friends

you know hey look you've gotta you gotta

try this um so having an open kitchen

where you can see

that freshness and the customization i

think has been part of the um success of

the business it's almost like there's a

set of really strong values underpinning

the business and the business has been

reverse engineered maybe not even

reverse engineered because when it's the

case of a founding family still running

it i'm sure it all comes sort of

intuitively to them but and so in

hindsight we look at it and go that's

the point of genius that's the point of

genius but it all comes from these

underlying values one of those is about

the freshness of the ingredients and all

being very real so of course the kitchen

would be open right because you've got

nothing to hide yes but in hindsight you

go well you know that's that's genius

well no

it would be strange to hide away the

kitchen in such a context but um that

that particular point about the kitchen

being open at five guys is very

different from all the other fast food

restaurants that came before five guys

that dominated the high street where

you'd order the burger and then

something would go on in the back and

then you'd get this thing wrapped up

given to you yes

i've also seen this trend with all these

fast salad outlets where they put all of

the vegetables the carrots and the

the cucumbers on show in front of you as

if to say these are the carrots that are

going to go into your salad yes and it's

small you don't really you don't think

about it as a customer that much but

somewhere subconsciously it really

really matters right yeah no i mean i

think you know part of the the original

founding of the business um jerry

morrell picked a very obscure location

and said look if we can make this

location work we know we have something

it almost was like a speakeasy um you

know we're like you know knock three

times and you know someone will open the

slide window and you know you give the

secret word and then you come in and so

five guys kind of had a little bit of

that kind of

coolness factor of like hey let me tell

you about five guys it's amazing and you

know maybe you haven't heard of it

certainly haven't seen it on tv or on

the radio but it's amazing and if you

you know come find out so you know when

barack obama left the white house in his

limo to go pick up five guys and for his

office you know that was you know a

great example of how of course you know

everybody knows who he is and that's

kind of like a megaphone but that's how

five guys was discovered that's how five

guys built its business was

one recommendation at a time

and i can remember covent garden was the

very first five guys outside of the u.s

and

we'd spent a lot of money

paying for the bar that was there to

leave

and then building the first five guys

and uh the

we were quite nervous we were well into

five figures seven figures for you know

for the new for the first store and um

the night before opening we were like

what happens if nobody comes and jerry

morell laughed and said you know look

you've picked a good location someone's

going to walk by here and

they'll walk in we'll make them a great

burger and they'll tell their neighbors

and it'll be fine and of course there

was a queue at 4 00 a.m in the morning

and there was a queue around the

building for you know the first two

years that the business was open until

we opened up more five guys around there

because people had tried it in america

including me i tried it and i think i

tried it in america before i tried it

here i'm 99 sure that i tried on my way

to coachella one year or something but

and then when it came here i was like oh

that's that amazing burger place from

america is that why there was a key

around the corner when you were working

there actually is a burger blogger

community right this global okay and

everybody talks about burgers and you

know it's one of those

very um articulate communities that and

there's a lot of debate about who has

the best burger and why it's the best

burger and five guys is in that debate

in that mix and so we're really

fortunate for that um and and actually

when charles and i were were

thinking about who to do business with

it really was when you know when charles

flew over and went to five guys in

manhattan was like this is fanta the

product's fantastic

one thing that we did really differently

in the uk

was the property approach

we thought the product was

it was a category winner it was the best

that we had that we could find but

it was positioned from a property

perspective and you know mostly in strip

centers and in kind of b locations in

america and we thought let's give it the

property

presence that it deserves and i think

that positioning was a really important

distinction that we made richard collier

who runs our property has done a

fantastic job of picking the flagship

locations to say

there isn't a better premium burger than

five guys and we're gonna make sure that

you discover us partly because of where

we are so you chose aspirational

locations because you wanted to make the

brand

aspirational essentially

well we knew that we weren't going to be

advertising so

you know if you can't tell people about

who you are

you have to rely upon the footfall and

that which essentially becomes a word of

mouth accelerator

so if you have a lot of people walking

by your store some will make the

decision to come in and then that larger

group who comes in then kind of tells

everybody else and and that's really the

way the business grew and worked you

know you have this you have this rule

where you don't do advertising

has there ever been a time where you

thought [ __ ] i just want to just run a

little facebook ad you know the pandemic

comes around things start changing in

the world you think [ __ ] i just wanna

you know i know you joined some of the

delivery um services which was a which

was a big big decision for the uk yes

because the us hadn't done that

previously that's right but in those

moments do you not think [ __ ] i just

want to run a little

it's real tempting isn't it i mean you

know when you think about the dashboard

that most

food and beverage executives have you

know you have an advertising dial that

you can crank you know you can choose

the quality of your messaging and the

budget that you put in and the way that

you spend it and all those dials are

gone and off the off the table so you

know it does focus you on the things

that you can do which is

making great burgers and fries hiring

people who are passionate about it you

know kind of back to the whole people

thing

the people who are in the store make

such a difference um you know food

fundamentally is about passion we all

have you know you you're you remember

the great food experiences that you've

had you talk about them and it becomes

part of your if you're on holiday having

great food is part of that experience

and um having a passion about food is so

important and and

having you know i'm responsible for 225

restaurants now um and 8 600 people a

day get up and put on a red shirt and go

into work into five guys and whether

those people who are actually

shaking fries and grilling burgers care

about the product that they're making

the food that they're that they're

cooking

that's all the difference because all we

have is the customer eating a great

product it can't be good right if a

customer takes a bite of a burger and

goes huh that's really good

that doesn't move the dial nothing

happens it has to be that's [ __ ]

fantastic you know i'm going to go tell

somebody who else

who do i know who likes good food i'm

going to tell them

about a burger or a fries you know the

fries at five guys it has to be that

level good and you only get that level

good with people who pour their passion

and their care into the food that

they're preparing and having that many

people care about about

burgers and fries is the you know i

think the what makes us successful you

know that that sort of psychological

device that's making people want to tell

their friends do you spend much time

thinking about exactly why that is like

what is the why would i care if i've had

a great burger why would i care

psychologically to tell my best mate

about that burger what is it doing for

me

that's next level thinking stephen

and and actually is the i

one thing we have been able to do is to

encourage the morels to

widen their thinking a bit um and

delivery was a great example of that

where um they opened up a store near the

pentagon and a general called up jerry

and said like a thousand burgers at you

know noon and uh you know jerry bought a

big sign and hung it up no delivery and

put it on the side of the building um

and you know the thesis was right which

is that our burgers and fries taste best

right off the grill you know it's the

best food experience you can get

but we convinced him that

actually it wasn't just your cheap local

you know

guy who was delivering food it was

actually really high quality food and

more and more people were actually

looking for

really good food delivered if you could

come and try it here yeah yeah from

delivery yeah yeah absolutely before it

went before it went to america for sure

um but we convinced them that all of the

better restaurant concepts were were

actually heading towards delivery

and so gosh five six years ago now we we

started we launched delivery in the in

the uk and it really worked

it kind of became about 20 of our sales

and they saw that of course it's not as

good as right off the grill but it

actually is a good product and people

like it and it and it can work and if

you work with your delivery and you have

a commitment from your delivery partner

to take care of the food as it's

transported to the customer it can

really work and we did a lot of stuff

like you know telling people to you know

turn your oven on 200 pop the fries in

for about you know just a couple minutes

it'll really you know

liven them up before you eat them

so

they saw that it worked here and they

picked it up and of course during the

pandemic it was our lifeblood um you

know it would have been a very different

journey um if there hadn't been delivery

um in the system but we've been able to

convince the morels that some of those

things that were were rules of the brand

before

can actually be good for the brand and

can work and delivery was a good example

of that i guess that's important because

the world is changing so like stubborn

values are really good to some extent

but in a changing world

um it's almost a bit like the bible you

have to be able to look at the thing

again and go huh

yes maybe

you know so indeed indeed

and actually in the morels defense you

know they've they've become successful

who they are

is saying no to change you know when

everybody told them they should do a

chicken sandwich everybody told them

they should do a salad they were like no

no it's too complicated we take our eye

off the ball and the kind of core of

what we do um and helping them to just

to discern that delivery actually is

okay you can be the best

burger being delivered because it

doesn't compromise on their on their

values

those core values of serving food that

your mother would love basically exactly

right so they're willing to innovate but

with i guess they're not compromising on

their values then because those core

values are still there but now it's just

about distributions changing a little

bit well you mean you have a customer

who wants a great burger and they happen

to be watching the football match and

they're like i am not leaving my chair

right i'm watching the football match

and but i want the best burger i can

possibly get

so that customer you can still reach and

and you can give them a really good

product

when you think about the incumbents then

those we'll talk about just the burger

incumbents that were there in the let's

say in the european market before five

guys arrived

why do you think now from everything

you've learned that incumbents

often fall

what is it

gosh

well you know i i i

all i can say is that i think part of it

is

the

the most enduring

concepts will survive um and i think if

you look at five guys you know we five

guys wasn't successful because we put a

slice of avocado you know on a burger so

it wasn't there was nothing trendy about

five guys you know the the kind of the

15 toppings that you know you can put on

a burger whether it's you know grilled

onions or mushrooms or cheese and you

know lettuce tomatoes

fresh is trendy

uh yeah

it it it is trendy but i can't imagine

it ever going out of trend i mean you

you know

yes

i know there are restaurant concepts

where you walk into their kitchen and

there's little like a bank of of

microwaves and they like kind of pull

this stuff out and you pop them in the

microwaves and i mean you know i can't

imagine that anyone would ever go let's

go back to that you know i mean

i think i think fresh is is now

a

an enduring expectation across price

points i mean if you can have you know a

you know a five guys that's incredibly

obsessively fresh you know why would you

not if you could

one of the things that i sometimes think

about why incumbents fall is that um

quality and attention to detail

declines as growth increases so the more

locations we have

quality i can see from your face but

this is

but obviously i think about you know i

won't name names mcdonald's but i um

i just think

you know the more locations you have

especially this underlying franchise

model will really ultimately hurt the

quality of the product and if it hurts

my quality going back to what you said

if i have a bad burger in milton keynes

i'm less likely to go into mcdonald's in

thailand yes so

i mean you know it's funny i mean

mcdonald's i would say is actually a

really strong competitor i mean

they they

they give you what they say on the 10.

is it declining i don't know the numbers

but is that i know you're not you're not

trying to slag anyone off here but is

my thesis is those those businesses are

in decline because there's been this new

wave of like fresh

and you know

almost all of our customers also go to

mcdonald's um and you know

if you if you look at the frequency of

five guys you know mcdonald's has a huge

frequency you know eight times or more a

year which actually ends up being you

know people go there a lot um and five

guys frequency is much lower than that

and and you know it's five guys is a

treat you know it's not something um you

know like a competitor of mine that i

think very highly of you know prett's

done an amazing job uh with who they are

you can go to pret pretty much every day

right and you know the subscription

coffee stuff you know all that kind of

you know stuff works on a routine basis

you can't go to five guys every day i

mean i i go to five guys you know you're

pretty close to it but um you eat a

burger that you know that kind of

frequently but um you know most of the

customers are are going you know a

couple times a year um so

it from a frequency perspective i think

um you know that's what makes five guys

a treat and special so on that point

about um the incumbents and what makes

them fall

and scale being one of those key factors

how do you how do you guard against that

you know you've got 250 225 locations

you said in europe that you're managing

yes um

how do you stop the 226th location

you know getting a little bit sloppy and

complacent and then serving bad burgers

yeah gosh david that you know the the

that was my primary concern when i you

know i was

charles and i structured the joint

venture together we you know we hired

the first employees you know and opened

the first restaurant and you know it had

such

amazing momentum you know it's kind of

this explosion of five guys and it was

you know really you know fun to be a

part of it in my the the kind of thing

that keeps you up is okay we're gonna

grow this business you know as fast as

we can because we know we have something

how are we going to keep

the intensity and the energy and the in

the passion

that we see in the store

in come and garden how do we make sure

that every one of these restaurants has

that kind of that was the

the most that covent garden location

sold more than any in the world

when it launched it did yeah by far i

mean

we underwrote it for like a five and a

half year payback it paid back in two

years i mean it was

just a phenomenal uh success

um

but yeah i mean the thing that kept me

up at night was you know how can we make

sure that you know we open up in milton

keynes we open up in um you know um the

smallest you know we're we're gonna open

up a store in st andrews you know how do

we make sure that that those stores have

people who are absolutely passionate

about burgers and fries and taking care

of hungry customers um and that i will

say

has been one of the biggest surprises of

my uh tenure is in this business is that

it's we've actually gotten better

and

the key to that is

hiring

very talented professionals and trusting

them um and you know

my personal style is a very hands-off

style of management i mean if you expect

me to micromanage you i've we've gotten

off in is the wrong place is the wrong

fit you know

we hire professionals who are really

good at what they do and let them do

their job

and finding those people who are

absolutely

operators i i'd say the other bit is

that we are very operations led um i was

a banker before it before this but i'm

fully qualified in a five guys kitchen

so i can do every task that you see in

you know making a making burgers and

fries i'm certified to do that

and people who are much better at it

than i am could do it much faster than i

can

but if you have any credibility in the

business you have to be operationally

capable

and hiring operationally capable people

who are

really good at identifying and

qualifying those people who can run a

store and bring that passion into a

store that's been the the secret of the

of the the growth of the business um

because

having that kind of commitment from the

person who's showing up and running a

shift that's what that's what makes this

restaurant successful

going back to that point about values i

i would imagine that you know from

speaking to actually sports teams and

speaking to the players in those

successful sports teams whether it's the

manchester united players that were

under sir alex ferguson for 20 odd years

and they they said something to me which

is really interesting and i never forgot

ria ferdinand said to me he said how

many times do you think sir alex

ferguson came into the training ground

changing room i said i don't know

you tell me he goes twice in 26 years

and i go why and he goes well the

culture was in there so he didn't need

to come in

and it spoke and then he told me about

when he moved to another football club

and in that same training ground

changing room they're all bickering and

talking about how much they're being

paid and like slagging things off

whereas sir alex ferguson never needed

to walk into that room because the

culture was already in there and it made

me think about how

you know to keep the specialness of what

made you successful at one location when

you have 225 those values and that

culture must be so strong so if i'm if

i'm starting at five guys in a

management position today what are you

saying to me to turn me into a five guys

disciple well i mean i guess the we do

actually have values that we identify

with inside the business and

hiring right is

essential i mean there's so many

talented food and beverage professionals

who are really good at their job but who

are a terrible fit for us

and so being able to find those human

beings who

work

in a five guys so a general manager

works in the restaurant with customers

with crew making burgers and fries

taking resolving problems and issues

there's not a laptop job and a five guys

um so someone who's looking for kind of

you know kind of ice skate above things

and you know not really getting your

hands dirty that's not the right fit for

us so i guess the first thing we did was

when we opened up nobody knew who five

guys were so we had to beg people to

work for us um and of course that that's

always a a mistake um we hired a lot of

the wrong people and you have a lot of

churn early on trying to find what that

right fit is um and so i remember it was

a really important decision we made

where we're essentially going to invert

the equation

and we said you know five guys is a

really hard job

and it is probably not for you

and then kind of be quiet

and look for the look for the

the woman or the guy who kind of raised

their hand and said that kind of sounds

good to me um and so

having the kind of negative sell on

working at five guys i think was a

really important distinction that we

made but once you get into five guys we

have five values that that we build our

business on um and that's integrity um

you can't once you lose your integrity

everything else is easy um so having

integrity in how you lead

being competitive um and you know

wanting to win and going after

the business being enthusiastic having

passion and positivity and looking for

the solution

family oriented taking care of people

having a sense about

the human beings who are on your crew

and the hungry people who are coming

into your store and treating them like

family then getting it done

not over complicating it our businesses

have you know our menu simple our

business is simple but it's really hard

but making sure that you have a very

much results oriented

focus as a manager and we actually train

and teach those values and when you look

at the pandemic and how five guys

comparatively surfed through the

pandemic it was

because we

taught those values and we all absorbed

those values into how we thought and

then

when you know you had to be agile and

nimble and flexible you knew what what

the what the objective of the business

was and

all the managers just

beautifully adjusted their business to

reflect the opportunities that they

could take

how um how do you go about instilling

those values in team members um beyond

beyond the day when they're hired is

there is there certain things you're

doing every quarter is there daily

emails like what is what are the touch

points where you're using them as an

opportunity to say this is who we are by

the way yeah well i think the first

thing um was a a

card from uh dec that you played was we

we launched an app um right

like within a week of the pandemic

falling we had been planning to have an

uh an employee-oriented app um but we

launched the app um right when the

pandemic struck we're like we have to be

able to communicate because we were none

of us knew what was happening and being

able to be in direct touch with every

human being in the business was

such a um a great tool um and we

immediately had like

massive down i mean it was it was

universally kind of accepted as a way to

communicate with inside the company and

it allowed so i was recording something

pretty much every day to say you know

here's what's going on here's what the

rules are here's why it's going to be

safe to come to work here's how we're

going to protect you and your family and

the crew and and the customers in this

environment

and being able to have that direct line

of communication to the whole company

was really powerful kind of cut through

a lot of the the fear and um and

uncertainty about it one um two is that

we we've now we're now investing

massively in learning and development um

we 75 of our managers are promoted

internally um so these are people who

have joined us we have people who have

joined this crew and gone on to be

district managers area managers now so

that kind of career opportunity um is

fantastic so if you're ambitious if

you're

have you know career goals come to five

guys because we're growing and we need

your talent to to grow the business so

being able to

first of all we know that that career

internal development is kind of the best

path to um to to growing inside of five

guys and having new leaders for all the

restaurants that we're opening we've got

to invest in the young people who are

joining five guys

and teaching them not just burgers and

fries but how to manage

how to manage people um you know there's

so many different kinds of people that

it takes to make a restaurant work

how you communicate with one crew member

may be very different from how you

communicate and motivate with another

one and giving our managers tools for

how to connect with all different kinds

of people

who work for them is you know an

important investment that we make before

the pandemic happened um i think i said

a lot on this in this podcast and just

generally that my single biggest

learning being a young entrepreneur

starting in business and then making all

the mistakes and then getting a little

bit more mature was the importance of

talent and i always say that by

definition of the word company the

definition of the word company means

group of people took me too long to

figure that out because when i started i

was 20 years old you know you just hire

your mate here

18 years old i started my first

companies hired you know my friend here

i met someone at rap event i was like

you can be my marketing director went

into prada met and other guys that you

can be the head of our account it was

just that kind of whoever was willing

right right

great people

exactly probably who i needed at that

phase but for the next phase you need to

um i learned that you need a different

caliber of person and really i should

have been a bit more ambitious from the

jump if i'm being completely honest

um and so now i reflect on it and think

damn in fact every company is just a

recruitment business at its core like if

i had hired steve jobs i would have

and bound them with the right culture

and values yeah i would have had an

apple right i would have made an apple

how important do you think it is um

to hire the best people and how how do

you go about that what is the

the strategy

yeah well first of all i think we had

the benefit of seeing the success of

five guys in the u.s so charles and i

had a conviction

that even before we opened the first

store of course we were nervous when we

opened it but that we we thought we had

a tiger by the tail because we thought

the product was fantastic

so

we were able to assemble people who were

proven to be really good at what they

did from the outset and kind of like

across the board in the senior

management team so julie spear who's my

head of operations unbelievable we would

we wouldn't be where we are without her

richard collier who's head of property i

mean he opened up 2 400 stores for

carphone warehouse all across europe

really

established professional those two are

were essential we would never be where

we are without those two individuals but

then

kind of driving that all the way down to

the you know the the the first crew

person who you hire in a new and for a

new store

hugely important because they're

actually gonna be making the burger and

fry for for the customer who walks in

there and you know i think that you know

it's probably an urban myth but the

shackleton story about you know putting

an ad in the paper for his you know

south uh

south pole expedition you know it's

gonna be dangerous and risky we'll

probably you know we may not come back

alive but if we do there'll be glory

that kind of negative cell

i think was a critical point for us

where you know five guys is a really

hard job huge expectation physically

demanding job

it's not for everybody and and you know

stating that being confident enough to

say

look you know

you're a very talented human you know

professional in food and beverage but

you're just not the right fit for us and

being the confidence to say no in that

regard that was hard but i think that

was a real turning point um in the

business for us what about firing people

that's the worst part of the business um

really hard you know i mean it's um you

know

if you get it wrong it's so painful you

know these are people who you know who

are human beings

and if the jobs either outgrown them

or they were the wrong cultural fit

it's really obviously it's hard for them

but i mean it's def it's really it's

it's a soul-crushing moment which makes

it that much more important to hire

right and in the interview for culture

you know but when when an interview

finally gets to my level

i am 100 focused on culture i mean the

the whole qualification of their

professional skills has been addressed

by the time they get to me and i am

solely focused on are you a good

cultural fit um are you the kind of

person who you know obviously is good at

what you do but are you going to be when

we're in the trenches and when the the

chips are down and we have to make the

hard calls are you going to

value the the same things that i will

and that we do as a company um to make

your decisions what is your philosophy

though for moving people and you have a

clear philosophy around hiring people

what is the philosophy for moving people

on because i've made this is again one

of my other biggest mistakes in my

professional career was allowing people

who are clearly not right fit to kind of

overstay their uh journey with my

company

i just wish sometimes that i had because

the net damage of that when you your gut

tells you this isn't this is not the

right person yeah but maybe for whatever

reasons emotional reasons you don't act

fast enough is so severe

yeah well you know i mean i i first of

all i think i think you can't you have

to make the decision that's best for the

business um and the in in realizing that

this business is bigger than any of us

um including me um you know i can be i'm

i'm hired and fired by by my board um

you know charles and the morels can

decide any day that i'm not the right

guy to lead the business going forward

and certainly at the executive level to

me

my expectation is that everyone should

have that expectation it's a privilege

to have the jobs that we do it's not a

right um and if if there's a if there's

a tough decision to be made

making it clearly cleanly um and

directly is the best thing and there's

no reason to be

um

negative about it you have to be but you

do have to be very direct about it um

and quick um

quick is really important in in my book

you know there is a bit of a difference

between the uk and the u.s um you know

the u.s has a um favors that quick side

of things and i think i probably fall

into that category and that can be a

challenge in an environment where

there's like you know what about a

six-month garden leave yeah i'm like

what is it i'm not sure what a garden i

went the other way so i launched a

business here then we took it to america

and i'm like what two week notice period

everyone has a two week notes but what

the hell is this yeah and it's really

just a box and you know please you

probably should leave now uh in america

more than more than not it feels like um

but i think once you've made that

decision

it's you can't move soon enough um

because and it's rare

that someone is that you would consider

to say i really don't think they're

right for the job and that that person

kind of recovers to being a superstar

right that almost never happens so

if you do have that i'm not sure that

i'm not sure this person's right for the

business either from a talent

perspective or from a cultural fit

perspective you know it's probably i

mean i think you need to listen to that

urge because it's probably right and

actually it's a favor to that human

being as well because they're gonna

whether it's talent or if it's um you

know a cultural fit

there may be a fantastic opportunity

elsewhere for them and all you're doing

is holding them in a you're holding them

back professionally because they're

never going to fly in your organization

but they might in another court in

another culture

so i know it never feels like that um to

say you know look i'm doing you a favor

by you know telling you that you you

know not to work here anymore um but if

you know someone's not going to be

successful in your business it is best

for everybody to do that quickly and as

soon as you can actually

how important have you

realized it to be in the five guys

business and

for the success of a five guys brand to

have a real high attention to detail and

to sweat the small stuff because a lot

of businesses don't sweat the small

stuff they kind of see it as being petty

or not mattering and they kind of focus

more on like the big decisions they make

but

you know what's your sort of philosophy

towards the small stuff

um

well first of all i think being

operationally focused is something that

defines your business um and for us so

our details are the standards for

cooking burgers and fries and you can

never

focus on that enough um you can and you

know if you're not actually cooking

burgers and fries you better be

supporting someone who is in the

business so that that kind of

um

horrible disconnection that you can

sometimes have of a head office people

who call it the head office we call it

the back office

from the actual business

um is is you know to me is the death

knoll for uh you know for for certainly

for a food and beverage business um so

having that connectivity to the detail

of um of the the purpose of our business

which is feeding hungry customers uh is

is to me is essential

now

from a detailed perspective i don't want

to get into the details of my i.t guy or

my marketing team or the property team

you know

i've hired people who are fantastic at

that and i don't want to be into the

details i can't be into the details of

each of those professional expertise

that you hire for you have to hire

talent and let them do their um their

professional expertise

but how do you check that you know if

something say something in one of your

stores and say like we mentioned milton

keynes so let's just keep focusing on

that um

in milton keynes if standards have

dropped because of the leadership there

how are you checking that

those standards are staying high yeah so

we mystery shop every store twice a week

okay and and we put the money that we

would typically that other brands would

spend on advertising we spend an

incentive compensation for crew so we

pay out millions and millions of pounds

of incentive compensation to crew to be

the to be the best of the best

and we grade so the mystery shop looks

like 120

points of what of what's important from

a burgers and fries perspective from a

cleanliness perspective from a customer

service perspective

and the top rated

shops that have

that perform get paid incentive

compensate meaningful incentive

compensation um so i'd say that com back

to the competitiveness everybody wants

to get paid everybody wants to compete

for that excellence and to be recognized

for that um so mystery shopping i think

is a is a fantastic way of

ensuring that we're all focused on the

same thing and if you find a location is

continually ranking at the bottom of

that mystery shopping scoreboard what

what are the next steps of action yeah

well i mean you know the first question

is in store leadership you know who's

who's leading the store are they the

right person do they have the right

orientation do they have the right

values um are there are they trained

enough to do their job well um so um you

know we have a very flat organization

where you go from general manager to

district manager

area manager and then you know basically

the top of the business um so it's it's

pretty pretty quick um and and i do

what's called a mid-year review i'm

actually missing a couple to be on your

on your on your podcast today uh but we

have every gm stand and present their

stores performance once a year in june

july august in that time frame

and so i get a view of the in-store

leadership you know who is that human

being who's in charge of that store what

do they have to say about the results

that they've delivered both from a

financial perspective most of all from a

perform from a customer service

perspective and a quality perspective so

you kind of get a direct view into who

is that human being who's running the

store one of the things that's happened

over the last couple of years is this

this pandemic it's been this very

tectonic shift um in many industries but

there are a few industries that have

been affected more than like the high

street and retail and food and beverage

there's been real tectonic shifts in

technology and footfall and all of these

things um as the ceo of a business

that's gone through such chaos how do

you maintain your own personal

calm within all of that chaos because it

is just never ending we were talking

before we start recording you've gone

from a pandemic to inflation issues to

this sort of great resignation and uh

you know talent crisis as they're

talking about all of these things

happening at once you're a human being

in the heart of that

how do you enjoy your life and

keep

calm and you know

not annoy your partner or whatever

um yeah i'm sure i do all those things

i'm sure i'm sure i don't keep calm all

the time

and that's okay

you know i think

just as we in the business try to keep

things simple um focus on burgers and

fries um i think there's

keeping focused on just a few things and

picking the couple of dials that that

will

determine whether you

survive whether you live or die

whether you win or lose

and

hopefully picking those right things to

focus on

i think is

the way i try and and

manage myself as a ceo um you know i

think

it's interesting you know the the

moments that i

consider to be the most intense and the

most rewarding

as a as a leader

are the human ones where

because i'm ceo

people have to explain what's going on

in their lives

and those moments are just rich gold for

me as a human being where someone comes

to me and says you know i have i've got

a parent who's suffering from dementia i

have to you know have to spend some time

looking after that and um or you know i

i've i've had a loss and i've got to

figure out um you know how to manage

that that loss and and those human

connection points

are um

are and actually that kind of feeds back

into our family value um you know where

we

and as a ceo i have my a smaller

direct report community that i have to

take care of those human beings and my

my view is that if i can take care of

those human beings they'll they'll do

their job and take care of of their

human being so recognizing that it's not

you know it's not all dollars and pounds

and and pence it's not all um you know

kpis that you can manage it's not

quarterly earnings it's the human beings

and if you focus on them

particularly on the vulnerable moments

when they're most

um upset when they're most um at risk um

and being able to say yeah you know

take a week take them you know what what

you need

as a human being is important for the

business because i need you i need your

professional acumen but i need it

focused so

being being sure that they're all right

in those moments i think is uh um

gives me

the satisfaction that i'm looking for

from the job of of chief exec

um my dad was a psychiatrist

um and you know was obviously clearly

focused on mental health and well-being

and you know from a chemical perspective

um and you know realizing that whatever

whatever

chemical i mean obviously i'm sure he

did important work in that regard um but

you can

at work you have the ability to either

build up or tear down

someone's mental health and being able

to provide an environment where

someone's mental health is

protected and

perhaps even tended to

i think is a is a powerful

um

it's a powerful thing for me as a as a

leader and and and hope

what i see is that that approach

carrying out

throughout the business so that style of

leadership um is you know is is

contagious as a value in the business so

you know

if if someone's in distress

um in in a crew um you know the the

shift will suffer and you have to take

care of that person who's um in distress

um and um understand them and and see

what it takes to build them back up and

to provide them the support and security

to to be effective in their job

what about your mental health when was

your hardest time my hardest time

in your five guys journey yeah well um

i was i went through a very painful

divorce um and

went through something called leave to

remove which i wouldn't wish on my worst

enemy

it's the essentially it's the right to

have your children taken out of the

country

so i had two young children um who

um

the court system approved leave to

remove which allowed my ex to to take my

kids back to america um which was um

incredibly painful um and my whole um

view of myself my definition of who i

was

changed i thought i thought of myself as

a

you know great partner good husband good

father devoted father

you know

i was in politics back in america

was involved in my community and a

church leader and

businessman and i thought you know all

these things are who i am and

essentially all of that was uh you know

a quite a large bonfire of vanities

and that was a real dark dark moment for

me um and there were there were days

when five guys was

the one thing in my life

that was stable and that i could hold on

to and that really pulled me through

a very difficult dark time uh personally

how long did that that process last um

that's part of the uk challenge it took

years um a better part of two years uh

we're in that process um and then um you

know trying to um rebuild those

relationships and thankfully i'm in a an

amazing place with my kids now um and

have um you know

accepted that they

that we have had a more adult

relationship

prematurely but now that they're both at

university

it feels more normal

now and

those are hard fought hard-won

recast relationships

which you know were really important are

important to me

but was i was

the thought that they were at risk

was um

caused just enormous anxiety and and

living with that kind of anxiety and the

personal side having having a place

where um you know things were more

predictable

was um in being able to work in that way

and provide for them um was uh you know

a real

um

yeah really helped me through

when your kids are

essentially taken away to another

country and you you've got this huge

responsibility of running this big

business how do how does that impact

your ability to show up every day

professionally yeah

well i mean it was it was it was really

complex for me because i had a

non-compete back in the us for the

business that i had sold so i couldn't

just relocate back to america and do my

job um so it felt like a huge catch-22

because i had these court-ordered

financial obligations and the only way

that i could really fulfill them was to

keep doing my job here um so

coded financial obligations is in the

separation costs and stuff that you have

to pitch apart yeah exactly um so it

felt like a catch-22 they were allowed

to leave but i had to provide for them

so i had to stay and so it felt like a

um kind of a indentured servant to for a

bit but um you know

being able to um to focus on

um on a

important job that i had actually was

enormously relieving because i knew that

for you know

10 hours a day you know 12 hours a day

whatever whatever it ended up being that

i could actually

do something productive that i knew i

was good at um that made a difference

for them um and that um

was it the the anxiety of of being

separated i i could set aside for a few

you know for those hours in a day and

that was really helpful um it it it

could have absorbed just kind of

overwhelmed me um but work was able to

it was it was a place where i could or i

could escape from that did you see

your motivation fluctuate often when we

have these like pretty substantial life

events there's an initial period where

getting out of bed in the morning is a

little bit more difficult it's almost

like someone is messed with your why

your reason to get out of bed in your

sense of purpose yeah so you always have

to i've learned from my own experiences

that you have to spend a little bit of

time you're almost

faking it

to get to get the drive back if that

makes sense no of course no well you

know i told you i got up at 5 a.m when i

was a kid and practice violin for an

hour before before uh school and what i

mean i was never a great musician but

what i did find was that if you did

something every day

you actually could get better at it

maybe even more than competent

and

i think it was something like that that

just in me you know said you know get

out of bed do the next do the next thing

and

something things will change you will i

called a friend of mine who'd been

through a similar um situation um and he

said you know just keep showing up you

know you know texting my son every day

calling you know every day

being as present as i possibly could um

and you know

obviously it's imperfect um and it's

deeply upsetting i'm sure to them as

well as as well as to me um but doing as

much as you possibly can to be available

and in touch um and and then you just

have to trust um trust something that

it'll be okay

trust something

doesn't just trust life that it will

no i mean you know i i

now we're getting very personal to even

but uh you know i i i believe in a

higher power um i i don't i don't

pretend to understand it um but i think

there's something much more powerful

than i am in the world

and what i will say is that it helped me

to see the world in two camps one are

things that i can't control

and some things that i absolutely can't

control

and if you spend if you allocate your

mental um health and your time on the

things that you can't control

um you can drive yourself to distraction

and eventually madness um so being able

to focus on the things that you can

control um and and realizing that that's

your job um you know your job as a human

is to do the things that you can control

and if you if you you know it's just

it's just arrogance and and um ignorance

to to focus on the things that you can't

control um and so

identify those identifying those two

camps and being at peace with that

accepting that you can't some things you

can't control that's really hard

but it's hugely important

yeah i i was at this festival this

weekend and there was a

i did one-on-one meetings with lots of

people that were in the audience for

three hours and i found myself being

asked over and over again how to deal

with exactly that which is when chaos

arrives in our lives what to do on that

day and people had me recording these

voice notes for them for that day so

when that day comes they just wanted to

be able to play it and what you said

there is exactly what i said which is

there are a small list of things you can

control and on that tough day make a

promise to me that you'll spend 100 of

your mental energy focusing only on

those things because you can't because

obviously yesterday focusing too much on

that tends to lead to depression as i

think the lu sao the philosopher says

focusing too much on tomorrow and the

things that are yet to be in your

control will also cause a lot of anxiety

so really focusing on today i think is

just phenomenal advice in terms of

um a

it's the thing that's most conducive

with a successful outcome but b it's

also the thing that's most conducive

with having a healthy mental

state in total chaos

i think that's absolutely right i mean i

think the other thing is that realizing

that our pr i believe our purpose in

life is human connection um i think

that's why we're here i think we're

we're made to to connect and sometimes

it's you know we're colliding with you

know and

more than connecting but but figuring

out how to connect with other human

beings and i will say you know

that was the making of me as uh uh the

in being able to

to

you know when someone comes into my

office and says you know i've i've lost

my i've lost my partner you know they

passed away you know

way before their time you know

being able to connect with that person

in that moment of loss is

hugely valuable as a company

but hugely meaningful to me as a human

being

and

i wouldn't have been able to do that if

i if i hadn't been through the

loss that i that i had experienced um so

you know it's one of those things where

you end up being grateful for the the

most upsetting things that happen in

your life um because i think they're the

making of you in many ways

because of what you said at the start of

this conversation about that importance

of feeling like you belonged and that's

so it's so evident that that is

um much of the reason you've also been

successful is your you you mean even

from this short conversation we've had

you strike me as a very empathetic

person who's able to connect with others

that moment must have been presumably

even more difficult because your sense

of belonging in that moment was was

taken from you to some degree the family

unit right no for sure that was that was

a yeah that was a defining moment um but

now you know

the thing about

about five guys is that you know we have

these 8 600 people who get up every

morning

and have this shared vision mission to

make great burgers and fries for hungry

customers

and

i get to be a part of that and you know

i get to be a part of this larger

community that that has this the in the

you know winning in business feels

fantastic right i mean it's a real

it's a real high it's a it's a um it's a

drug and it's an addiction and being a

part of a community

that had that that's accomplishing this

thing you know we were the we were the

eighth fastest growing business uh in

2016 i think in the uk and the fastest

growing food and beverage business and

even with that we never met a budget

that i had made so you know we were you

know we were fastest but you know still

behind by by by my mind and um

being it being a part of this community

that shares our our values and that are

all working towards us is is

enormously satisfying and um

and yeah fill something that that you

know has always been empty

some days as ceos we

maybe we're tired or you know

we're in a bad mood or something's off

um we can sometimes not show up as our

best selves

and sometimes when it happens with me i

i regret it so i'll go home and think i

just wish i had i wish i'd handled that

situation differently does that happen

to you a lot where you think

i wish i'd

been in a better mood or i'd slept more

today or something yeah julie tells me

julie my head of ops she comes in and

says yeah you really [ __ ] up that

meeting

but but but actually having um having

somebody who

um you know

to me the the one of the worst things

that can happen

are these um you know emperor has no

clothes where you know where the

where the the most important powerful

person in business has blind spots that

you know everybody knows about and

somehow you you know you work around um

and and that's just

hugely dangerous as a business

and having people who can come into your

office and go john that that was you

know that comment was just way out of

line or really unhelpful you know you

now have people thinking like this is

that what you wanted

so people who can confront

power

with truth and you know to me that that

kind of culture is hugely important to a

company because you can go so wrong

with the emperor has no clothes and

people think god we know this we just

can't tell them to that person how did

you cultivate that

because i imagine a lot of ceos and a

lot of team members that work for a ceo

think ah there's no way i could go to my

ceo and tell them that was wrong or he

shouldn't have said that

or she should have said that i think

publicly owning your [ __ ] um is is

really is really helpful um in that way

you know so showing up at the next

meeting and go hey you know what i said

this the last meeting and that was just

really wrong it was off and

you know i was i was off my game or you

know i didn't think it through and you

know

and it should be the opposite it should

be the opposite of that um and and you

know

showing that you can respond to that