Mastering the Art of Pizza & Business with Mike Basuch | Episode #50

Great teams make great restaurants. On The Pre-Shift, restaurant operators and industry experts dive into building great restaurant teams. We explore their stories, their strategies, and valuable lessons on running restaurant teams. Hosted by D.J. Costantino. Presented by 7shifts.

Mike Bausch, a certified master pizzaiolo and the brains behind Andolini's Worldwide joins DJ Costantino on the Pre Shift Podcast.

In this episode, Mike shares his journey from aspiring Marine Corps officer to leading a 12-restaurant empire in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Recognized nationwide for their exceptional pizza, Andolini's success is attributed to a commitment to quality and a no-half-measures philosophy. Mike outlines his leadership and staff training techniques, explaining why he avoids the term 'family' in favor of a more professional 'team' dynamic. He also discusses his transition into becoming a mentor and educator for the restaurant industry through his Unsliced Restaurant System. Mike offers insights on cross-training staff, maintaining low attrition rates, and the importance of structured employee evaluations. The episode is packed with practical advice and actionable takeaways for building and sustaining a high-performing restaurant team.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Pre-Shift Podcast

00:23 Meet Mike Bausch: The Pizza Mastermind

01:19 Mike's Journey: From Marine Corps to Pizza Empire

03:04 The Turning Point: Mentorship and Mastery

06:39 Expanding the Brand: Beyond Pizza

09:42 Building a High-Performing Team

15:55 Balancing Structure and Flexibility in Training

16:42 Maintaining Low Attrition Rates

18:34 Employee Feedback and Evaluation Process

21:03 Team Building and Andomania

23:12 Mike Bausch: Mentor and Educator

24:59 The Unsliced Course and Restaurant Systems

26:15 Engaging with the Restaurant Community

31:49 Future Plans and Exciting Developments

32:22 Conclusion and Farewell

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Credits
Host & Producer: D. J. Costantino
Producer: Samantha Fung
Editor: Fina Charleston

About 7shifts
7shifts is a scheduling, payroll, and employee retention app designed to help restaurants thrive. With an easy-to-use app and industry-specific solutions, 7shifts saves time, reduces errors, and helps keep costs in check for more than 50,000 restaurants.

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Mike Bausch: Like Tarantino can make a movie about basket weaving. I'm still gonna go see it. So in Tulsa, if Andolini's is doing something, it carries a brand recognition because they know we're not going to half ass it. 

[00:00:14] D.J. Costantino: Hello and welcome to the Pre Shift Podcast, the show featuring real restaurant people, real stories, and real advice on building high performing teams. I'm DJ Constantino and I'll be your host. Mike Bausch joins us in the virtual studio today. Mike Bausch is a certified master pizzaiolo and the mastermind behind Andolini's Worldwide, a 12 restaurant empire in the heart of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

[00:00:34] D.J. Costantino: Andolini's has earned nationwide top 10 pizzeria nods from TripAdvisor, BuzzFeed, CNN, and USA Today. Mike is not shy about sharing how he's gotten where he is either. He's a best selling author, frequent conference speaker, and the creator of the Unsliced Restaurant System, a premium course for restaurant pros. 

[00:00:51] D.J. Costantino: On this episode, Bowser explains his philosophy on staff training and retention, and why he avoids using the term family for his team. He talks about his transition into becoming a mentor and [00:01:00] educator in the restaurant industry, launching his Unsliced course, and his goals on social media. As always, the pre shift is brought to you by 7 Shifts. 

[00:01:07] D.J. Costantino: Enjoy the show. 

[00:01:12] D.J. Costantino: All right, Mike, thanks for joining us on the, on the show today. Thank you for having me. I'm stoked to be here. Absolutely. Um, so I want to dive right in. Um, You know, what made you go down the path, um, become a pizzaiolo restaurant owner? And, you know, did you ever envision yourself being responsible for a team of 300 people and a bunch of different restaurants? 

[00:01:32] Mike Bausch: Being in charge of a bunch of people? Yes. Uh, owning a restaurant? No, it wasn't. It wasn't the master plan. And when people say like, did you always love pizza? I'm like, yeah, it's not a high bar. I'm kind of not unique there. Um, my dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps who had, you know, hundreds of people under him. 

[00:01:51] Mike Bausch: I, Thought that's that I was going to be in the Marine Corps. I went into the Marine Corps. I found I had juvenile type one diabetes. [00:02:00] So while I was at officer candidate school to be. You know, an officer like my dad, I found out right when I got back after doing the training that you're not doing this. So then it was like, I have all this leadership ability, but what are you going to do with it? 

[00:02:13] Mike Bausch: And I was working restaurants to pay for college. I didn't realize I was, you know, getting a second education there that I'd be using probably more than my poli sci degree, which I am proud of. And I, I use that as well, but that's how it went down. And then pizza was like, all right, well. I've worked pizza. 

[00:02:32] Mike Bausch: My brother had worked pizza. Let's do pizza. Not a ton of thought. Um, but then it was like, hold on. We didn't open this to suck. The pizza is good enough for a waso, but we knew we had to learn as much as possible and you know, there's, I know guys who have like grew up with their mom or dad's pizzeria or restaurant. 

[00:02:53] Mike Bausch: The beauty of that time was there was. Like 2004, there was still no availability of knowledge. [00:03:00] Yeah. Fast forward, like two years after that, things started to open up. YouTube started to open up and I got in with Tony Gimignani, who was for the first time teaching. So I went from having no mentor in pizza to the greatest mentor in pizza and being one of the first people he actively mentored. 

[00:03:20] Mike Bausch: So I had a quick trajectory for being another pizza place to being an impeccable pizza place. That's awesome. How did you connect with, uh, with, with him? I, it's, it's, we, we go back and forth on this as a funny story, but I just saw him on food network and he had invented most of the pizza acrobatic tricks you see, but I saw his restaurant was highly lauded and he was using the same oven as me and I couldn't get anyone to answer. 

[00:03:45] Mike Bausch: My phone calls. So I just called him. I called like 10 people, but he called back and was like, Hey, you're using a Rotoflex. So, okay, we'll do this, change this, do this, do this, do this. What else are you doing? I had no reason to do it, but I was like, wow, this, that's [00:04:00] interesting. And that's kind of cool. So then I heard he was doing a. 

[00:04:03] Mike Bausch: A professional class on pizza making that he went and took the college level course in Italy, brought it back. And I called him up for my second conversation with him, who he talks to people all the time. I was like, Hey, can I come to that thing you're doing? And he's like, well, it's like 10 days in Manteca, California, if you can get out here. 

[00:04:21] Mike Bausch: So with the zero money I had, I got a flight, went out there and, uh, learned everything. And I was the youngest guy in the room and it changed. It changed the trajectory. One of the many things that changed the trajectory of our restaurants future.  

[00:04:35] D.J. Costantino: That's awesome. So you had already been open before you went to do all that training and it just came from a desire to be better. 

[00:04:41] Mike Bausch: For sure. And we were doing cool stuff. Like we were stretching fresh mozzarella already, which was like fine dining restaurants don't do that. They mostly buy it already made. So the guys in that class were like, Hey, this 25 year old kid's kind of doing some interesting stuff, even though. He's relatively new. 

[00:04:57] Mike Bausch: And then I was asked to be on the [00:05:00] world pizza champions, competitive pizza team. And then I competed in, in, uh, salsa, majority Italy and did really well. So it started to snowball from there. That's awesome.  

[00:05:09] D.J. Costantino: And you're still on the, uh, the competition circuit. Well, it's,  

[00:05:13] Mike Bausch: it's a, so that's a whole separate, super interesting story. 

[00:05:16] Mike Bausch: And that we start, we, as a team and competitors by 2017, it was like grew to almost 50 people. And I said, Tony's like building stores left and right. And I was like, can we. Bring this together. Like it's, we have all these individual movies. Can we make the Avengers? And we created the five of one C we brought in, not people purely that were competitive, but people that were consultants, people that were in the people that lived and breathed pizza and helping others. 

[00:05:43] Mike Bausch: Became this group. And then I, uh, what became vice president and then over time became president of the group. We held the world. We had a Guinness record that we did here in Tulsa. We took the world's largest pizza party, which was a thousand 50 at the time, more [00:06:00] than tripled it. All at once location, which has yet to be broken to do it in one spot. 

[00:06:06] Mike Bausch: And then, uh, all that money went to benefit, make a wish. We sent seven kids on their make a wish wishes. And so now it's a five, one C we had a book that came out. That's a number one Amazon bestselling cookbook all with my, uh, my pizza people.  

[00:06:22] D.J. Costantino: That's amazing. The pizza community, uh, stretches far and wide. 

[00:06:26] D.J. Costantino: Um, yes, it's  

[00:06:28] Mike Bausch: much tighter than the burger community. There's no burger Kai. There is pizza.  

[00:06:32] D.J. Costantino: That is true. That is true. Um, yeah, and I definitely want to get into that a little bit more, but I am curious about the restaurant. So the growth that you guys have, um, you started out with the, the pizzeria and now, you know, you've expanded quite a bit. 

[00:06:45] D.J. Costantino: You know, if you've got a fine dining spot, you've got the counter service, gelato, food hall, food, truck, uh, fast cheese steaks, like. Just a very, a wide variety of, of businesses. Um, you know, what made you want to, I guess, [00:07:00] initially, what made you want to go outside of, um, the world of pizza? And then I'm also curious about, um, like how you build a team for that variety. 

[00:07:09] D.J. Costantino: Um, but we can start with just like, what made you want to venture out outside of the pizza world a little bit.  

[00:07:14] Mike Bausch: Well, for, for sure. And it started like, okay, let's get another Andalini's and other Andalini's. And then it was going great. And we're like, well, you know, we should do gelato. Let's have a gelateria. 

[00:07:22] Mike Bausch: And we'll have that at certain Andalini's and just solo gelaterias. And like, oh, the rules. Still like completely worked the, of how to build a brand, how to build a team. The logo is different. Maybe the menu is different. The brand voice might be slightly different, but the rules stayed the same. It was a system. 

[00:07:42] Mike Bausch: So then it was, okay, we got the location next to our most successful Andalini's. We can't just, we actually debated making it a bigger Andalini's, but that would have been cost prohibitive is that we would have to add sprinklers. We would have had to have both sites closed. Like this is dumb. We should just do. 

[00:07:59] Mike Bausch: [00:08:00] Something else. What else? And we're very food driven. So we're like, let's do fine dining of everything we would want to have that we just aren't having. So only fresh pasta, super experienced, driven that fresh mozzarella. I mentioned, let's do that at the table. Let's make a fine dining of everything we would Alfredo and a Parmesan Reggiano wheel at the table, so then we're like, okay, this will be cool. 

[00:08:22] Mike Bausch: And then instead of just like a, a really great avant garde beer focused bar, let's have a more whiskey focused with a lot of Prosecco's at this bar. And so it differentiated brand, but that did exceptionally well. So. The food hall people came to us and they're like, Hey, we really know that with your acumen, this could be a success. 

[00:08:45] Mike Bausch: We started with an Andalini's. They're like, it's already like too close. Let's let one of our employees come up with another branch. Who is employee Tara has all sorts of crazy, cool ideas. Let her just run with it. And then what do you want in a food hall? Cheese [00:09:00] steaks. There wasn't an option. We were passionate about that. 

[00:09:02] Mike Bausch: So something that's like Italian inspired, inspired, we do very well with. And so it's just taking that. And at this point, like we could go to another city and do well in this town. It's like, we're a Tarantino film. Like Tarantino can make a movie about basket weaving. I'm still going to go see it. So in Tulsa, if Andalini's is doing something and it carries a brand recognition because they know we're not going to half ass it. 

[00:09:29] D.J. Costantino: Right. So it more just like you wanted to stay, you know, local, but you, you know, you can't just have a dozen of the same thing. Um, you know, capitalize on each other. This just kind of gives you that variety. Awesome. Um, so as far as the system goes, I'm curious about like, how do you build a team that can serve as such a wide variety of restaurants? 

[00:09:50] D.J. Costantino: Um, you know, what kind of stays the same when it comes to training and hiring and, and the retention pieces and what is a little bit more dependent on the concept [00:10:00] itself? Um, you know, I'm curious about things like, do you cross train? Do people work at different concepts? Um, you know, do you rise up the ranks and can you jump from the slice shop to the fine dining? 

[00:10:09] D.J. Costantino: Like, how does all of that kind of work?  

[00:10:12] Mike Bausch: Great question. And it's everything you said, you hit the nail on the head. Like we're all about growing in the company. You know, someone's killing it as a server. They can eventually work at Prosimo. Uh, all of our GMs are. From within we've learned it's very hard to be captain of the football team, first day of freshman year. 

[00:10:31] Mike Bausch: So we bring people up and are the mentality on the overarching mentality about staff is that people don't want to suck. They want a path to not sucking. And if you can provide them that path, they will do great, but you have to provide them the path. And a lot of times people aren't provided the path and owners are like, Disenfranchised, like these kids don't care and they don't understand. 

[00:10:59] Mike Bausch: I'm like, [00:11:00] well, have you given them a path to care, especially coming from the Marine Corps? Where my brother was in it, my dad was in it, I was in it. You see, you can, you know, these 18 year olds could be effective when there's motivation behind it. And ain't doing it for the money. They're doing it for the ideological. 

[00:11:19] Mike Bausch: Hey, I want to be better than myself. I want to win. And when you can key into that, this job is just a lot easier and it's not so much a job anymore. I think that's what a lot of restaurant owners failed to realize, you know, having core values, having what you stand for, having them understand that this is. 

[00:11:35] Mike Bausch: Yeah. I don't use the term family because, hey, I'm a teammate of yours. I will work to make sure I have your back. You will work for mine and we all work for Andalini's. You don't work for me. We all work for Andalini's and when that's the belief through actual. Actions stuff changes and it gets better and I've seen that 180 other restaurants when they start to look at it that way as opposed to, [00:12:00] I paid them, I don't understand. 

[00:12:01] Mike Bausch: And then to training, it's an investment. Like any great investment, the more you invested it, the bigger the return. So when people are like, I can't, you know, We just haven't followed someone for a few days. And if they don't work out, they don't work out. I'm like, you had, you did all this work to hire, to interview, to onboard. 

[00:12:18] Mike Bausch: And then you're just kicking them out of the nest. And some people are not going to fly when kicked out of the nest. You, you, you know, give them a more runway. It's a higher likelihood. And if anyone's ever really knocking their, their, their staffing pool, I'm like, is McDonald's staff in your town? It's like, well, there are McDonald's employees like, yeah, and they're totally systemized to work. 

[00:12:44] Mike Bausch: Olive Garden has a full staff today. So no matter what restaurant you're in, there's another restaurant that's a corporate restaurant that has leaned into everything but food at this point to maximize their efficiency. So if you could have great food and that [00:13:00] local presence and maximize efficiency with the system that staff are have a key in and buy in, you have such a massive advantage. 

[00:13:07] Mike Bausch: so much. That it's almost insane to not defeat them. Why don't you use the word family? I think people, there's a few problems with the word family. Like your family, are you going to fire a member of your family? And then family almost sounds like you could take it like working with family could either be great or horrible. 

[00:13:29] Mike Bausch: If they're like, what are you going to do? You're going to fire me? Like, that's bad when people are like, Hey, I'd do anything for you. But again, going back to the military, you act like a, you're Band of brothers per se you would die for each other, but you're also aware that you are not blood You are aware that hey if one person's not cutting the mustard, they're off the team straight up You we are all going to work our ass off for each other But you got to pull your weight and then when I see this dynamic in certain restaurants Where they will get the clubhouse mentality. 

[00:13:59] Mike Bausch: They'll [00:14:00] need three servers to run a lunch shift Two will call out one because their boyfriend broke up the other one because they're just hung over and they're like, don't even worry about it. Just stay home. We're good. I'll fit. We'll figure it out because their loyalty starts to go towards each other rather than to the customer. 

[00:14:18] D.J. Costantino: That makes sense. Yeah. So it doesn't, like the family gives you like the, the kind of leeway or, you know, it's family kind of look the other way sometimes or like these kinds of things and that just, Even though it's just a word, it still instills a lot of, there's a lot, it's a very heavy word. What are some of the more, from a staffing standpoint, what's something that's a little bit more different across concepts? 

[00:14:40] D.J. Costantino: Um, do you find that there's a large difference between, you know, the fine dining spot and the, uh, a prosciutto and, and the slice shops like the food halls or is training pretty much kind of all covered the same way?  

[00:14:52] Mike Bausch: I like a five day training regardless. I think training needs to have three components of it. 

[00:14:57] Mike Bausch: All training really is three components [00:15:00] and most restaurants will stop at. On site, just, Hey, you're here. The next one would be one to one. And then the best is to have some level of book trading with one to one followed up by onsite. So that would be, Hey, here's a video and a PDF of how to make a pepperoni pizza. 

[00:15:18] Mike Bausch: Now I'm going to make it in front of you. Now you make it. Okay. That was good. Do it again. Until they've physically shown that they could do it, not just like, nod your head. You get it, which is very bad. And then, all right, for the rest of tonight, you're going to make every single pepperoni pizza. That's the way you build a team. 

[00:15:37] Mike Bausch: And that's just functionally understanding how to do one item of the menu. So then it's, you know, front of house, how to do, here's the scripting fence. You need to mention this and mention this, mention this. Here's a suggestion, but make it your own. That's the win of that. Like, okay, Hey, you've been boxed in before other jobs or say this exact [00:16:00] script or get fired, or there's no script to figure it out. 

[00:16:02] Mike Bausch: I like the mix of here's the guardrails now make, make it your own. You would see a great employees come from PF Chang's. Lots of finite scripting, Chick fil A, lots of finite scripting, but they also are like militant in a good way and a bad way. Cause it's very much like this is the only way to sell this chicken sandwich and nothing else. 

[00:16:25] Mike Bausch: So if you could make it your own, I think it builds an incentive to last longer, to be more stoked about the job.  

[00:16:30] D.J. Costantino: Cool. So training seems to follow the same structure, right? But, um, obviously the tasks and the things that are being taught are specific to each concept where you kind of keep that same, um, approach. 

[00:16:41] D.J. Costantino: Yeah. So we talked a couple years ago, um, for a piece on, on seven shifts that we talked about. Um, you know, your retention and you mentioned having a pretty low attrition rate compared to the rest of the industry. Um, I'm curious since then, it was a couple of years ago now, um, what's been the biggest challenge, you know, in keeping that attrition low, um, [00:17:00] you know, and what are some of the ways that you work, um, to keep your staff happy and, and, and retain them? 

[00:17:05] D.J. Costantino: Um, so you're not always hiring all the time.  

[00:17:07] Mike Bausch: Well, I think our attrition rate has still maintained a low level because we actually brought all of our employees that were not managers that had been with us for over a year into a room. And it was probably like 60 employees. Uh, that, that came to this and we call it the consortium. 

[00:17:26] Mike Bausch: And we had a different person who's not me or, or an owner or any manager. So a friend of mine, who's a facilitator, ask questions for a whole day. And we pay them all like, I think 200 bucks each to get a real vibe of what the day, what they knew. And why do people stay? Why do people, why do good people leave or make you want to leave or what makes you want to stay long? 

[00:17:48] Mike Bausch: And we were really surprised that. The number one reason most of them were around was because they believed in the company. And I, we do a lot of donations, but we don't advertise them. [00:18:00] And I'm only saying it now. Like I don't, it's not a humble brag. We just never do it. Like there's certain things that are near and dear to us that we don't advertise, but they were seeing these donations go out the door. 

[00:18:09] Mike Bausch: They were seeing what we were doing that we weren't advertising. So even though we are outwardly trying not to benefit from this stuff, just saying, Hey, here's our due diligence to be good people. And Hey, make these pizzas. They're off ticket. It's still resonated and it still was like, Oh crap. This is why they're here. 

[00:18:25] Mike Bausch: All right. Now that was a big one. And it proved the ideological point that we were just doing it intrinsically, not overtly beyond that. It's having real functional approach to evals. Without fail, every quarter discussing, Hey, where are you at? What do you like? What do you think you could be doing better? 

[00:18:45] Mike Bausch: What could we be doing better? So they can say everything, say where they want to go, have no ambiguity. Cause that's a massive enemy of a restaurant. And then the big coup de gras of our evals is they get to write down, uh, it's like, what [00:19:00] are your final thoughts on this? So the computer, like it's all being filled out on a. 

[00:19:04] Mike Bausch: On a Google form in the computer and that they have to hit enter. So write all your thoughts that you hit enter. And that's going to me and all of leadership. So if they're like, I like this job, but I want to quit because of this and this and this, they could write that no harm, no foul. They're not going to get in trouble. 

[00:19:19] Mike Bausch: But we get to like, when we started doing that, where it was a few people like, I love this job, but I, there was a discrepancy in my pay last year. I never got resolved. So they've just been sitting on that for a year, probably building up anger about it. Like, well, let's hold on. Let's fix that right now. 

[00:19:34] Mike Bausch: Why did you not say anything? I just, I said it once and no one did anything. It's like, okay, it slipped through the cracks. You've been holding onto it this whole time. Let's immediately fix that. So communication without ambiguity that doesn't allow for antipathy is how you keep a low attrition rate from a very, very functional level. 

[00:19:50] D.J. Costantino: Yeah. And so you're doing those, those, uh, evals every quarter for every single employee.  

[00:19:55] Mike Bausch: Yeah, then that's like the sit down out of the rush eval. Like every day [00:20:00] we're doing a check in, we're doing what's going on, but that's a functional deep level one.  

[00:20:05] D.J. Costantino: Yeah. And then, so is there like a follow up meeting with a manager after that, after you get those filled out or how does the, how does it work once an employee fills out the, uh, like the quarterly eval? 

[00:20:14] Mike Bausch: Well, if there's, now that manager who's their direct supervisor knows where they're going and where they've been and what they want. So they can create the plan from there. They, the GM can say, okay, great. They want to learn front of house as well. Let's If it's, Hey, this egregious thing, I'm seeing it. So I can make moves if I need to break the chain of command, which I'm a big proponent of the chain of command. 

[00:20:34] Mike Bausch: But if they're like that, you know, I want an employee to be able to reach out to me, but I also expect that they go through the, the, if they say we shouldn't be selling this item, I'm like, okay, have you talked to anyone about it or why do you believe that? Like, I'll hear it out or, Hey, we need to fire that person. 

[00:20:50] Mike Bausch: Like, have you talked to your. Your manager first? No. Okay. Well, let's do that first. But, uh, uh, but then they're like, no, I did. And they still didn't do anything like, okay, let's [00:21:00] all talk about it. And then we can get in a room and figure it out.  

[00:21:02] D.J. Costantino: Very cool. Um, so beyond those evals and some of the other stuff, um, I remember when we talked, um, you did like the cool, you had like an Olympic, like a festival, like a team kind of celebration thing. 

[00:21:14] D.J. Costantino: Um, I forget the name of it, or if you remind me, but We call  

[00:21:16] Mike Bausch: it Andomania That's it, yes And we're going to be doing it in a, we're doing our next one in like two, three weeks  

[00:21:22] D.J. Costantino: That's exciting  

[00:21:23] Mike Bausch: So, yeah, it's, and it's just how much dumb fun can we have, and it started cause like I was doing, we're doing staff development parties, but they just turned into people drinking with their own social circles that Some random place. 

[00:21:36] Mike Bausch: So we're like, how can we bring people together to compete, to have fun, to eat food, to like meet people that aren't in their group and to, and to have a title belt, which I have another one of it right behind me here. So yeah, it's been such a success that we build it up each year and it's, it's more than just a party. 

[00:21:52] Mike Bausch: It's more than just staff development. It's again, creates lower attrition. It's does many things. If I was just a soulless [00:22:00] corporate automaton, I would do it. Luckily, like I like the people so it helps, but I can't appear like, well, we don't have time for parties. I'm like, you really don't have time to not have a party. 

[00:22:11] D.J. Costantino: Exactly. So what are some of the activities that you have planned? Anything you can share?  

[00:22:16] Mike Bausch: Well, this year we, the, we're going to, we switch up the location each year. This one year is at a brew pub that has a volleyball court. So I was like, let's call it Andomania Ball. Okay, very cool. I'm advising it like to play volleyball with like a team of 10, which is way too many people, but then a few people at the same time have to be eating a pizza while the ball is in play. 

[00:22:36] Mike Bausch: And just, it's just layering on dumb and stupid on top of dumb and stupid and trying to make it as ridiculous as possible so that everyone's laughing and having a great time.  

[00:22:45] D.J. Costantino: Absolutely. And that's just, it, it seems like it's, yeah, I think it's, it's cool that you made that, like the observation that the, the staff parties had just become kind of like, you know, reinforcing maybe some of the, the community, like the [00:23:00] clicky stuff or, um, you know, it wasn't doing anything to, to build up and, and making those changes. 

[00:23:06] D.J. Costantino: Um, it seems like it's had quite the, uh, quite the impact and it sounds like a lot of fun. Um, so I'm curious now as well, um, so, you know, there's Mike Bausch, the, the business owner and, um, you know, if you go on social media, you're there every day posting different tips, um, on Instagram and, and the YouTube channel is quite active. 

[00:23:27] D.J. Costantino: Um, so. Um, and then you have the unsliced course, um, which I want to hear about as well. So tell me about kind of shifting into that role now as, as mentor and educator for the restaurant industry. Um, and what you hope to, uh, what your goals are is kind of putting yourself out there like that.  

[00:23:43] Mike Bausch: Right on. 

[00:23:44] Mike Bausch: Like, you know, we grew Andolini's to 30k on Instagram and we have 80, 000 emails. So there's always more to do with Andolini's. That's never going to die. The, but as I said before, I'm not wasn't when we were like, do we want to go into another city? It was like, [00:24:00] well, we really don't and I would just on a lark just because I like to write would do tips for pizza today and then more and more people are asking me questions. 

[00:24:08] Mike Bausch: So I put it all like all of the stuff I could. That would help people not just to do it into a book with no angle. And that was the unsliced book. But then more people like, Hey, fly out to me and help this. And this, we did a little bit of it. And it was just like, I don't want to take up a week of my life doing that. 

[00:24:24] Mike Bausch: And I know what you need to do, because here's our system. So, but I don't want every corporate chain to have it. I don't want someone who just wants to use the stuff and like, okay, turn and burn. I want independent operators who want the path, but there was no path for me. Okay. There was just, I mean, there was on the food side, Tony helped, but still like, Hey, here's how you make an HR manual. 

[00:24:50] Mike Bausch: Okay. You can go to your HRT, but what about the mentality of being an owner? There's really not a lot of people who are active owners speaking to other active owners about that. And [00:25:00] it's, it's a passion project that I don't think it should be this hard, especially for the people who really want to be in their community, help the culture of it, take this big risk. 

[00:25:10] Mike Bausch: If I can minimize that risk. Uh, then who am I to not do that if I have the CAPA capacity and the communication ability to do so? So there's that. And then the, from a, from a functional standpoint, it is way easier to make content for this than it is for, and he's like, food shots like, hold on, shoot it again. 

[00:25:29] Mike Bausch: Shoot it again. Take it, slow it down. Okay, now get the eat the chew shot. I pull it out like food, photography and video is hard. Yes, me talking to camera riffing. I could bang out 28 videos in 29 minutes. Like it's not hard for me. And then it's just edit and post it. It's so, and the beauty of it with schedulers and all the apps and all the things I've worked through is. 

[00:25:55] Mike Bausch: I know how to do it at a very, very effective level without a ton of cash [00:26:00] out like getting good editors, having a workflow, everything I do is creating a system that managing the system instead of the person and because I've done that hundreds of times for Andolini's doing it for this was, it's kind of a cakewalk. 

[00:26:14] D.J. Costantino: Yeah. And what has been the, um, what's been the response, uh, online or people, people into it had been engaging. A lot. I see, you know, I mean, you're posting every day, really great stuff and helpful stuff.  

[00:26:25] Mike Bausch: Yeah. I only started posting aggressively since two months ago and went from 1, 800 on Instagram to 5, 800 pretty darn quick. 

[00:26:33] Mike Bausch: Now I know a lot of places that'll have like, you know, a hundred thousand on fault. My followers are pretty much all, all 100 percent restaurant people. So. It's speaking to that niche audience and, and then giving them something that's going to help help them out, whether they're just starting or they've been around for 10 years, people that can humble themselves and say, Hey, I don't know at all.[00:27:00]  

[00:27:00] Mike Bausch: I'm a, I'm a very affordable option to get you way faster and way further in the game. That's a big thing. I, again, I just want people to know what's not BS. And to know what is, I'll say this, I mean, you haven't asked me to say it, but seven shoes is not BS. And it's a part of like what I talk about, like having a scheduler connected in knowing how to use it, knowing what to look for with a variance report, and then how to also, you know, to schedule with empathy. 

[00:27:30] Mike Bausch: I'm not seeing a lot of people out there in the community, speaking to the, the people talk about the functional. There's not a lot of people talking about the emotional and it's speaking to. If you don't schedule ahead of time enough and give people enough opportunity to request off and then if things go to crap, how are you going to ask them to cover a shift if you don't do that? 

[00:27:51] Mike Bausch: Well, the number one reason people quit their job in a restaurant is because of bad managers and the just the schedule is the direct reflection [00:28:00] of that manager. I've seen tons of people quit restaurants over the years because of a poorly designed schedule.  

[00:28:07] D.J. Costantino: Yeah, that's schedule with empathy. Uh, you, I had that quote, um, in the last article I did with you a while back and I've referred back to it so many times because it's just the perfect way to say it. 

[00:28:17] D.J. Costantino: Um, and I am curious as well with your following and, and with unsliced and, and the system, is it predominantly geared towards, um, pizzerias or, or, or that style of restaurant or does it fit? It fits everything.  

[00:28:29] Mike Bausch: Because we have fine dining and the cheesesteak and everything. I was like, at first, this system worked across everything we do. 

[00:28:36] Mike Bausch: Well, it worked beyond pizza. And then we have people who aren't in pizza. We're posting up all these wins. So I just, I'm like, there's even my book on sliced was positioned to the pizza community, but there's no pizza recipes in there. If you want that, you go to Tony Gimignani's pizza Bible or the pursuit of pizza are there's plenty of books on that. 

[00:28:57] Mike Bausch: There's. Very few on the, [00:29:00] on the operational workflows of an owner of a restaurant from an owner of a restaurant. And there's, that's a, a market that's kind of untapped and from people to see, Hey, here's what I am doing. That's successful proven. If you want it, here you go. And then, uh, a feedback loop. On a, you know, a weekly zoom call to check in to make sure that they're killing it that to make sure that they're doing what they want to be doing and that they're getting out of it. 

[00:29:30] Mike Bausch: Because the problems I see with the restaurant industry or for people, some people, it's just the owners are on the same page. Okay, you fix that. Their lives are better. Some people are amazing chefs. They have no awareness of their financials. They just rely on a CPA and they're afraid of looking. And they're like, I don't, I can't even begin to know where to start. 

[00:29:49] Mike Bausch: That's an easy fix. But it's a problem that they don't know where to start to fix marketing. They're like, I posted something on Instagram. Are we, are we Instagram famous yet? Like, well, who are you [00:30:00] positioning it to? What does it look like? Simple stuff. Then you get into the employees and they're like, I paid them and all the stuff we talked about today, like how to lean in, create core values, create onboarding that works, all that kind of stuff, then all everyone else, like the health department, your food vendor, how to build that relationship, not just give me cheaper stuff, but how to build that relationship. 

[00:30:21] Mike Bausch: And then the last thing I'm a big proponent of is now, how do we systemize it? You know, what each thing is, how do you take the stuff that you love? I'd do it on your terms. Like if you love working the line, great. But if you're working the line, because you're afraid of the world burning around you, like you're playing music on the Titanic, not great. 

[00:30:39] Mike Bausch: And that's what I want people to get past.  

[00:30:41] D.J. Costantino: That's awesome. And so, yeah, the system touches pretty much every aspect of, of restaurants, like you said, from the vendor relationships, marketing, the metrics, the, the employee stuff and systemizing it all. So. Um, it's not just like, it seems like it, it really dives into every, every aspect of it. 

[00:30:58] Mike Bausch: That's how I designed it. So yeah. And [00:31:00] I bet the response has been overwhelming. No one's asked for it. No one has come back and said, this was worthless. Like everyone's posting up big wins, which is exactly what I wanted it to be.  

[00:31:08] D.J. Costantino: Well, that's a great sign. Um, and is it, do you do it like in cohorts or is it, um, you know, people can kind of join it at any time. 

[00:31:14] Mike Bausch: I, I don't do it in cohorts. I, Uh, people, if they are interested, they could fill out an application. We'll evaluate your brand and everything. And then we accept you into the program that you have access to all the stuff. And then we do a weekly, uh, Q and a call. And then we have our community kind of like a Facebook group, but where people could say, Hey, here's my menu. 

[00:31:35] Mike Bausch: What do you guys think? And everyone could do their feedback based upon what we teach and unsliced.  

[00:31:40] D.J. Costantino: You know, I'll link to it, um, in the podcast description. Um, and just to kind of close things out before we have, we have some like lightning round type questions, but I'm curious. Um, I know you guys, you said you have Andomania coming up. 

[00:31:52] D.J. Costantino: Um, what are you looking forward to, um, with the business or with Unsliced, um, for the rest of this year? And, uh, you know, do you have any exciting plans that [00:32:00] you, um, want to share?  

[00:32:01] Mike Bausch: Sure. I mean, like Andomania is a really good one. We just released new pizza boxes that were super fun. It's like, looked like a Louis Vuitton style. 

[00:32:09] Mike Bausch: Uh, doing. Getting into the fall is always super fun around Tulsa. Our food truck has a lot of great events planned and I'm looking forward to all those. So that's going to be, uh, it's just always a great time in Tulsa.  

[00:32:22] D.J. Costantino: I think that's all we have, uh, today. But, um, Mike, thanks so much for taking the time out today, um, and joining us on the show. 

[00:32:30] D.J. Costantino: Right on. Thank you so much. Talk soon. Thanks again for checking out this episode of Depreciate. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a review and rating and share it with one of your friends to help the show grow. Also, be sure to subscribe to our Food Runner newsletter. Once a month, you'll get a roundup of resources, practical tips, and industry leader insights to learn more, quickly. 

[00:32:48] D.J. Costantino: Sign up at sevenchips. com slash foodrunner. Check the link in the description. Until next [00:33:00] time.