Stephanie Jaeger [00:00:00]:

With the restaurant industry, you are on 24 7. Like, every time you walk in that door, it's a smile. It's a. And sometimes that's hard, you know, to always have that smile on, but remembering to, you know, boost yourself up on your way in and make sure that you do have a smile and, you know, crank the music up before you walk in. You know, as you're driving into work like those, to me, that's sort of that leadership. Get out of your head because you're, you know, you need to. You need to be present, and you need to be. You need to be there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:43]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today by Stephanie Jaeger, the president of Les Demescophy International, also known as LDEI. Stephanie, thanks for joining us.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:00:59]:

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:01]:

Absolutely. As always, I love to understand what got people into this space. Right. Hospitality space is such an interesting, interesting space. So I love to hear what got you into the hospitality space in the first place.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:01:13]:

I was actually quite young, 14 years old, and I was instructed by an older sibling that it was time for me to start earning my keeper. And for some reason, I believed her. So here I am applying for a serving assistant position at a restaurant. It turned out that it was a restaurant that she and her friends had hung out at and thought that maybe they could use a little bit of help. So she thought I was qualified for that. But once I was in the door, I was kind of hooked. And, you know, I won't say exactly how many years later, but quite a few. I'm still involved and loving every day.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:53]:

That's awesome. Was there. Was there a specific moment or defining moment that maybe sparked that passion? Because a lot of people I speak to start off with the story of maybe having work there, whatever, but there's usually, like, a turning point where it's like, oh, I can see myself more than just, like, making some side cash or extra cash and see it more as a career. So curious. Any defining moments that kind of sparked it for you?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:02:16]:

I think I had. I had a few customers that were really, as. I sort of obviously got better at the trade as a server who, you know, sort of pointed out, like, you really seem to know what you're doing and seem to really like this. And I did. I liked, you know, going in for those crazy shifts and, you know, you know, Friday nights running till I was ragged, but at the end of. The end of the day being like, this is. This is, you know, that rush I definitely enjoyed for sure. And then I had an opportunity to open my own restaurant with my partner at the.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:02:51]:

And we ran that for 25 years.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:53]:

So it was kind of.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:02:54]:

It wasn't necessarily an aha moment, but it was definitely okay, here we go. Moment.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:59]:

Okay. Interesting. I'd love to hear more about that. 25 years. Tell me more about the concept. What was. What was it? Restaurant bar, made a bullet. Like, tell me about it, how it started, what it was.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:03:08]:

And to be honest, I think it started as a little bit of a hole in the wall. It was mom and pop shop for sure. I ran the front of house, he ran the back of house. It was fine dining. From what he was trained. He was a fine dining chef. Got it, had worked all over the world. So came back to.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:03:27]:

We're based in Vancouver. Came back to Vancouver and said, I don't want to do big business anymore. I want to run my own. I want to be able to touch everything.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:35]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:03:36]:

And again, came to me and said, you know, I really like what you do. I know you interact well with people and customers, so, you know, do you want to try this? And so, yeah, that's really cool. And, you know, we were. We were fortunate enough to be successful. We were in part of Canada's top 100. You know, McLean magazine, some of our local papers certainly gave us some accolades, which was phenomenal.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:57]:

That's cool.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:03:59]:

And, you know, from there, we just kind of built our business.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:02]:

That's super interesting. Really cool. And we'll definitely get more into, you know, LDI in a sec. But I kind of like going through the timeline and so just kind of going a little deeper on. On that restaurant.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:04:12]:

Aging myself.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:13]:

No, no, this is great. This is great. 25 years experience. I love it. I had someone on the podcast, I mean, we pre record them. So I had him on. Yes. No, two days ago.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:23]:

40 years in the hospitality space. So it's awesome to meet people all walks of life. But no, really the idea is we have a lot of restaurant operators, SL owners that listen in. So we try to get guests on from really anything from. Could be marketing experts, it could be ops type experts. Sometimes it's just tech companies related to the space, so have them on. So really one of that. One of the goals with this podcast, to understand people's story, their passion, and then just even learning.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:51]:

Right. Because it's always great to learn from your own mistakes, but it's even better to learn from other people's mistakes sometimes. And so, you know, 25 years running restaurant um, I'm sure there's a lot of lessons. Can you highlight a few that maybe come to mind? I know it's hard because it's such a big gap. 25 years is a long time. But any key lessons or moments that you think our listeners can. Can take advantage of?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:05:14]:

Well, I think one of the things that maybe being a little bit young and naive when we first started is accepting help and realizing that we didn't have to do it all on our own. I think we took a lot on at the beginning and sort of maturity made us realize that we could actually ask for help hiring people. You didn't have to wear all of the hats. You could sort of share the responsibility, which is definitely something I have, you know, I take in now. Working with Joy Restaurant group, being able to sort of share that knowledge that, you know, working as a team team is so much more impactful and really so much more rewarding.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:54]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:05:55]:

And being able to share your knowledge and your experiences and, you know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:59]:

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And to be honest, what you're saying actually strikes a chord, because I think it's. It's something I've heard from, from many operators where it's like, they, they don't ask for help. And it could be true for entrepreneurs in general, but I do find restauranters, specifically, they just try to figure it all out on their own. When it's like, you can ask. You can ask, ask. Don't be shy. Like, how do you handle this? How do you create processes? How do you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:24]:

I'm having issues. Or, you know, and I, I, I find restaurateurs do a pretty decent job when it comes to implementing tech. That's one area where, like, they'll quickly talk to their peers, you know, like, hey, I'm using this. Pos what do you guys think? Or, like, hey, I'm shopping around. What pos do you guys use? You guys like it, you know, like, what. What are you using for inventory? You guys like it? Like, this Angelo guy tried to sell me on WISK. Is it good? But. But beyond that, you're right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:51]:

I do see people kind of just trying to figure out. And sometimes you have to realize it's like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. People have done this before. Of course you're gonna have your unique spin, but, like, you're not the first person to have staff turnover. You're not the first person that has to count inventory. You're not the first person that has to cook under pressure. Like, Whatever it is in the restaurant, it's like someone's done it. So, like, don't.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:09]:

Don't be shy. Looking back, though, like, I'd love to maybe touch on this, because just to be clear, when you say partner, business partner or partner, partner.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:07:18]:

All of the.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:19]:

Okay, okay. I want that one. Because I don't want. It was just business, but that's what I understood. But the reason. Go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:07:25]:

I was just gonna say we actually started off just as business partners, but we did end up getting. We actually got married two years after opening the restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:31]:

Okay.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:07:31]:

So we knew it was gonna. It was possible.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:33]:

Okay. Okay. Very cool.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:07:35]:

Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:35]:

I guess if you can run a restaurant together, you can. You can. You can run a marriage together. Maybe there's a lesson there.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:07:40]:

Exactly.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:40]:

You know, nice little snippet. Run a restaura on the other. Run a marriage together. No, what I was going to ask. The reason I. I wanted to just clarify is, is what came to mind is you're obviously not the only one. Right. There's other people who are dating or married to their partner.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:53]:

I'm sure that comes with challenges with pros and cons. Love to hear, like, let's dive in a bit. Like, what was the good, what was the bad? Any tips for people who are listening or like, oh, my God, I work with my husband or I work with my wife. Love to hear it directly from you.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:08:07]:

Well, I think for me, one of the biggest things, I was, you know, obviously good with the relationship, but when I sort of was sort of like, almost right after the wedding, it was like, wait a second. These things aren't, you know, like, he's leaving the toilet seat up. When did that start happening? Or, you know, all those little marriage things that you think, towel on the floor.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:28]:

Towel on the floor is a key one. Key one, Exactly.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:08:31]:

I thought these things, you know, once we were married, these things were going to sort of clear themselves up magically. So we learned very early on that communication was key. Talking about it was key, but also home was home and work was work. And that became really important for us, especially as sort of newlyweds learning sort of the relationship at home, but making sure that I felt very overwhelmed with sort of being home and kind of trying to figure out how to deal with telling him that I, you know, you have to pick up that towel. But at the same time, he's telling me, you know, that one of my servers is. Needs to be, you know, addressed for doing so and so today. And I finally said, like, nope, that's it. You know, home is home and work is work, and that's it.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:09:23]:

And it, it saved our marriage.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:25]:

Wow. Yeah. I can only imagine. And it's great advice and I have heard that before, trying to, you know, separate, you know, work in place, so to speak. But the, the, the idea makes sense. But implementation wise, how do you do it? Because I'm sure there's days where, like, something happened at work and you're just like, oh, I gotta, you know, I need to. But it's like, oh, like, how do you go with, like, balancing the theory? Because in theory, yes, work is right, but then in reality, you're out for dinner with your husband and you're thinking about that issue at the, you know, it's like, how do you balance, you know, kind of separating the two?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:10:00]:

I guess it totally came down to communication. Absolutely. We owned a business that, you know, really was almost 24 7. Even though we tried not to be in the building 24 7, it was still there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:11]:

Right.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:10:12]:

And it was a matter of communicating. It was like, look, I need to. It was almost like scheduling a meeting. Okay, I know we're at home, but I, you know, I need to talk about work. And are you, are you prepared for that right now or do you want to wait 20 minutes and do it?

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:24]:

Got it.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:10:25]:

Is it, you know, let's talk about it after dinner when we get home. Like, it was just opening up that communication and being aware that you had to ask that question.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:34]:

Yeah, that makes sense. And to be honest, I think communication, as cliche as it sounds, it's just true for partnerships, period. Not just relationships, but like business partners and WISK. We were part of, like this accelerator back in the day called techstars. And one of the things we learned from techstars, because they deal with literally thousands of tech companies around the world, whatever. And they have different kind of accelerators all over the world. But talks they had, as you kind of go through this accelerator process, is about startup failure, which, you know, similar restaurant failures, more startups fail, most restaurants fail. But the biggest reason, and this is where I'm tying the whole point together, was actually just founder breakup.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:14]:

So, like communication, it was like co founders who are misaligned. They're not happy. They're not. So it was interesting. It wasn't lack of funding, it wasn't product market fit. Like those things happened, but it ended up being founder breakup. So it's like, definitely. I think that translates probably to most businesses.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:32]:

So great, great takeaway.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:11:34]:

The restaurant industry is Tough too. I think there's sort of this, there's sort of this romance that, you know, it's all fun and, you know, drinks and, you know, great food and it's so much fun. And I think there are definitely some people that go into it kind of thinking like, as best friends, this is going to be such a great lifestyle and it's going to be so much fun. And so that also takes its toll on relationship. And again, if you're not talking about that or you're not talking about the fact that you're, you know, you're exhausted or you're, you know, whatever it is you're feeling, I think it really impacts it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:08]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:12:09]:

The other thing I would add to that too, just to tie it back to ldi, I was able to join pretty early on the organization and one of our big things is sort of that mentorship and networking ability. So I was able to sit down at a table with some pretty amazing women that had kind of, you know, been there before me. And just to be able to have that one on one conversation with women that were similar or like we said earlier, going through similar experiences or having, you know, you know, divorce is pretty high in restaurant, in the restaurant business, even if you're not working in the same building. So that was an amazing opportunity and something that really kept me stuck. Just made sure I stayed with ldi.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:51]:

Yeah, yeah. And speak. Speaking of which, like, I know if, if we'll definitely jump into the ldi, but I did have, if I'm reading. Right. So like, obviously I was, you know, researching before and kind of looking at your, your, you know, trajectory and what you've been up to and what, and I believe you transitioned basically to a learning and development specialist. I'd love to maybe touch on that. And then let's, let's dive into, you know, ldi, which I know is the crux of what you do today. But just maybe finish the kind of timeline.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:28]:

I'd love to just hear like, what, what does that mean? Like, talk to me about like the, the, the learning and development specialist. What, what does that mean? What did you do? Because we know it's a core part of restaurants, but I'd love to hear kind of what that meant.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:13:39]:

We did end up closing our restaurant in 2021 and I was fortunate enough. Joy Restaurant Group approached me and said was a little bit, we're not sure what we want you to do, but we really want you to be part of us or with us getting on in my age. I wasn't super excited about staying on the floor, managing a restaurant, that kind of thing. Again, it's a lot of work standing all day.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:07]:

I think people that don't stand all day don't know how much it hurts your lower back and being on all.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:14:14]:

Day, having to have that conversation all day and the smile and, you know, welcoming everybody into your home, which is how it. How it feels like to me. Like I'm always inviting somebody into my home. And I had the great opportunity of getting to share my husband's wonderful food with them. So that also helped keep me, you know, keep the smile on the face. But it's a long day, so, yeah, I was able to meet with the people and culture team and kind of jumped full steam in both feet. Started working on. Joy is rapidly expanding into the United States.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:14:51]:

We are a Canadian based company and I was able to sort of use my knowledge what they have done in their training so far. And we're kind of, you know, making it a bit more succinct as we go into the American market and making sure that we are training everything consistently is sort of the key right now.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:11]:

Interesting.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:15:12]:

And yeah, I mean, we've always taken the approach that every restaurant is sort of the managers, like it's. Your business is sort of one of our internal sayings, because you do. You take responsibility for it and the name Joey's on the door, but, you know, it should feel like yours. That being said, we do want to keep everything consistent as well. So that's my responsibility, is kind of rating everybody in and making sure we're training consistently.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:40]:

Yeah. Opened one not far from me. I live in Miami. There's one in aventura, like maybe 20 minutes north of me. So that's. How many Joys are there? I know they're. They're pretty, pretty big. How many.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:53]:

How many locations are there these days? Because I know they've been expanding, but. Curious.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:15:58]:

Yeah, I. I think the total. I'm gonna get in trouble for this. I think the total count is about 40 now.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:03]:

Okay. Wow.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:16:03]:

Across. Across North America, we do have a sister restaurant, Lowic. Pardon me. Local public eatery. Okay. We have about 15 of those.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:12]:

Is that mainly Vancouver, though? Because I haven't heard that one. That. Or is that mainly Canadian or. Those.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:16:19]:

Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:19]:

Okay.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:16:20]:

Yes, 100%. We actually just opened our second American store in Houston.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:24]:

Oh, cool.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:16:25]:

Excuse me. Sorry, Sorry. We actually just opened in Dallas. We're about to open in Houston.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:29]:

Got it. Okay. Very neat. Okay. I didn't know that. I'm going to look into the sister restaurant. It's pretty neat. And.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:34]:

And like that. That's super cool because, yeah, I saw. I saw them open, and it's. It's funny. That's the thought I had. I was like, I could have sworn they were a Canadian company. But it's cool to see Canadian men expanding like that. So that's awesome.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:45]:

I'll have to definitely check it out. But changing gears, I want to get into ldi, Les Dame Discoffier International as the president. Tell me a bit about what. Number one for people that don't know, because I'll be honest, I didn't know until I googled it. So let's start with what is it? What is ldi? Let's start there.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:17:06]:

It is a philanthropic organization. Nonprofit. We are a nonprofit organization that support women in the culinary, hospitality, food and beverage, all sides. That's kind of. Our goal is to mentorship, and mostly predominantly through scholarships, we help women in their industry.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:31]:

Okay, very cool. And then I know mentorship is. Is a. Is a big part of it. I'd love to. To maybe chat a bit about that. Any success. I always hate asking for success stories because it's like sometimes you, you know, it's like, tell me a funny joke.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:44]:

It's hard to think of one on the spot. But if there's any recent ones that come to mind, I'd love to maybe share or give you the opportunity to share a success story of maybe where mentorship really kind of led to some really cool outcomes.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:17:58]:

I can honestly pick one. We do have 40 chapters across North America, including. We have a chapter in London. We have a chapter in Mexico. We have just opened a chapter in Italy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:13]:

Okay. Wow.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:18:14]:

Each chapter. Yeah, each chapter ranges in size from about 20 people. Our New York chapter, I think, is pushing 300 now.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:24]:

Okay.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:18:25]:

I'm sure I'm going to get an email from Neil, the president there, saying, hang on. But, yeah, I mean, so Carol Brock, who was the founder of LDEI 37 years ago, now it's all mentorship. For me personally, like, I've already said, like, sitting at that table the first time was probably the scariest and most exciting opportunity I've ever had in my life, because these are some women that I've always looked up to in our industry. And here I am just, you know, sharing a glass of wine and talking shop, but in a. In a positive way. To me, I think what I see in the LDEI, that is the mentorship. That is the ability to just sit in a room and talk.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:06]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:19:07]:

But again, with so many women involved, they touch, they touch other women. And that, that didn't sound quite right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:16]:

That. I get it.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:19:17]:

They support other women, you know, every day. Every day. And that's, that's their goal. That's what they want to be doing. They. I want, we want to make sure that women are going into kitchens feeling comfortable and if they're not feeling comfortable, why. And having somebody that they can communicate with, that's really cool. And just being able to be that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:36]:

Support, that's really cool. And so for maybe our restaurant operators or managers or owners listening in, specifically the female ones listening in that are like, this sounds interesting. Walk us through like their point of view. Like I'm a woman, I'm a, I'm a woman. I'm interested. This sounds interesting. What happens? So I go on a website, do I sign up, do I show up to a chapter? Like let's go through like maybe their journey to just paint the picture, all of those things.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:20:03]:

Okay. The easiest way is probably to go to our website, ldi.org it has a list of all of the places that we do have chapters. So list of all of our 40 chapters. There's a link there that you can click into for your region. And yeah, the requirements are that you do need to have five years minimum in management.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:24]:

Okay.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:20:26]:

The logic behind that is that we do want mentors and we want to be able to support students. You know, all of our chapters do scholarships and, or grants of some kind. So having a student as a member does it is. Isn't. We're not. What we'd like to do is have that student become a manager and then them and join us at that point. So we'd like to be able to have them continue to, to receive our support as opposed to be giving it in an early stage of their career.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:56]:

Got it. And, and so they go to ldi.org they find the chapter closest to them and then what does. Is it a kind of somewhat standardized process where like each chapter has X amount of meetings a month or like, like what does that kind of side look like? Like what happens once you join?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:21:16]:

I think it's a bit, it's, it's, it's definitely up to the chapter themselves. LDI as we call it, sort of the International is sort of the umbrella that looks over all of the chapters, but each chapter is individual. Again, having 20 members versus having 200 members. You're going to change your format a little bit. All chapters do try and have in person events so that you are having that in reach opportunity, that opportunity to network with your peers. But then we have fundraisers where, you know, you're getting your hands dirty and you're getting in there and you're raising money for scholarships or you're raising money for grants. You know, one of our chapters, San Antonio, has done an amazing job. They do one year of scholarships and the next year they do aspirational grants where they're providing women who already have businesses that need, that are struggling to get to the next level.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:22:07]:

And maybe I shouldn't say struggling, but you know, they need, they need that help, that little lift to get to the next level. So they're providing, you know, funds to help that. Whereas in the opposite year they're doing scholarships where it's, you know, they're providing women the opportunity to get their W set or get their, you know, next level of culinary, whatever it may look like.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:28]:

Very neat. Cool. I mean, it sounds super interesting. I mean, definitely post podcast. I'd love to connect with you and chat if there's a way WISK and somehow support. I mean, we're on the tech side, but we work with a lot of bar managers or owners and on the food side, a lot of chefs or kitchen managers and you know, help with mostly back house stuff, but all the, all the boring but important stuff, but also inventory costing that we can't survive. Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:57]:

Super necessary, but like super tedious and the worst thing ever. Which sometimes I, I joke around, but it's one of the reasons I think people we're talking about this. But it's the, the entry to a restaurant is like, like you said a lot of times, it's two friends, you're having a drink, you're like, we could do this. And then, and then they get into it and it's like, damn, I didn't realize it was all this accounting and bookkeeping and P and L stuff and all these numbers. Yeah, it's so, it's like so number oriented. And then you realize, oh man, like, and I think that's probably part of the reason there's such a high failure rate is because like, the barrier to entry is like somewhat low in the sense that like, sure, anyone can open a restaurant, so to speak, yes, you need some capital, etc. Etc. But like, the barrier is low and it's one of those things that people experience because you're going to restaurants so like, you feel like you can do it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:42]:

It's not like you're in other industries. You're not really experiencing the thing. It's not like you're, like, experiencing a tech company. You're like, I could do that. So it's like. There's something interesting about that where it's like, a lot of people think it looks easy. It's, like, almost seductive. It's like, this is cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:59]:

I'd like to work in industry. Like, this is fun. And then you kind of get into it and you're like, it was much more fun on that other side. I much. I was much happier as a guest, sipping a bit of wine. I'm not. I'm not loving this side.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:24:14]:

Yeah. Long days, for sure.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:16]:

Yeah, long days, long hours, tight margins. Um, Yeah, I feel. I feel like restaurants sometimes are just the. I've said this in other episodes, so for people to say might. Might sound like a broken record, but it just. I was joke around. Like, restaurateurs, in a way, are like, you know, entrepreneurs of entrepreneurs. Not to say, like, oh, it's harder to have a restaurant than to, I don't know, build the crazy tech company.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:40]:

But in a sense, it's just. For a restaurant, just. There's so, like. It touches everything. So there wasn't, like, a lesson or a class. A restaurant is like, amazing business class because it's back a house, front of house. The legal stuff. I don't know, freaking leases, hiring, firing, staff, training, process.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:01]:

It, like, just perishable items, inventory. Like, you touched so many parts of, like, business in one small building that it's like kind of a. In a weird way, a good. A very good intro to business because you end up, like, literally having to do a bit of everything. Right. So I'm curious, like, how 100. How do you. You think about that, like, for people starting off? Because Obviously being around 25 years, no easy feat.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:28]:

Like, how do you kind of recommend people transition from wearing all these hats to then, you know, trying to delegate them? Like, what. What did that look like for you guys?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:25:40]:

I don't know if I can answer that question. It's a lot of trial and error, to be honest with you. It was the opportunity that we had some servers or even some chefs or cooks that came into the kitchen that were kind of. They wanted to take that next step. And it was kind of like, hey, I can take this on. And sort of realizing that you didn't have to have this tight grip on everything and that, again, being able to share that responsibility and that pressure that it took off. You know, people always said to me, so you. So you.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:26:15]:

You. You know, you Were the hostess. Well, I was the hostess. I was the bookkeeper. I was the sommelier. I was the, you know, I had 101 hats.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:23]:

Right.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:26:23]:

And I think being the restaurant owner, sometimes I had a great song that stood beside me and, you know, could. Could work the room and sometimes they weren't available or they, you know, decided to move on so that I took that hat back on. But then I had a bartender that was, you know, killing in it, so I didn't have to wear that hat. So there's definitely opportunities. But yeah, again, I think it's just being able to work as a team and accepting that others can do it as well.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:51]:

Yeah. And I think a big part of it is, is what you do today, which is the training aspect. Right. The training, the learning. Because, you know, I was talking to, to Greg from Crave Worthy Brands, and he was piece at wonderfully. He was just talking about building your bench. He's like, you got to build your bench because you want to promote from within. So it's like, it's super important that you're kind of training, you know, and growing people and not.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:17]:

And that's fine. And, you know, we, we kind of spoke about how, like, sometimes people are scared to train too much or invest because, you know, what if they leave and. And then, you know, there was that a whole quote is like, well, what if they stay? What if you don't train them and they stay? So it's like, you know.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:27:33]:

Exactly.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:34]:

So it goes.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:27:34]:

It goes 100.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:35]:

Right. So I'd love to know from you. Right. Because this is something you do on the regular for restauranters. Listening. You obviously have a wealth of experience, not only running a restaurant 25 years, but on the, on the Joey side, on the learning, the training, how do you think about or how do you recommend people think about these. These things and how can maybe they implement some type of learning slash, you know, training in their restaurants that are maybe not as big as Joey's.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:28:05]:

Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing that, I mean, again, going back to restaurants and their uniqueness, you know, the size makes such a difference on how you would really train. I think my biggest thing or my recommendation would be is literally to step back, like almost zoom out and look at it from almost an outsider's perspective. What are your staff talking? You know, what have they. What, what bad habits have they picked up? What bad habits are they teaching new staff? Are you present when new staff is being trained or are you just throwing them on the floor? I mean, I Think that's a really typical thing, too, because of cost. Right. So you just. You hire a new staff member and you throw them on the floor and, you know, cross your fingers that they survived.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:28:53]:

And I. What we have noticed, right. Recently with the Joey Restaurant group is that sort of taking that extra time to actually get them prepared to be on the floor and, you know, learning the food items, learning the cocktails, and having that confidence, the server having the confidence when they step on the floor, the whole image changes. You know, the second the server is more comfortable, then the, you know, the customer's happier because the server's not. Not worrying. They like that. You know, they're so in their head that they can't focus on what the customer's even asking.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:29]:

Yes. It's so true. And like, even just as a. As a patron, like, I've. I've experienced it, right. Like when someone. When a server is confident, you just trust them more. Like, oh, and I would go with this.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:39]:

It's one of our most popular. And you're like, all right, final do that, you know, or like, upselling me on a wine. And like, this is great. But if you really want to pair something with. All right, I trust you. Like, but it's in the delivery, right? It's like the big part of that's. Well, the knowledge and the delivery. And it's interesting, though, how it could.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:55]:

It could definitely, like, have such a big impact. People don't realize, but that training, whether it's like server average check size or upselling something or tables ordering desserts or ordering drinks or not ordering drinks, like, all these things add up. And that training is where it comes from. Like, why is person X average ticket size, you know, this and person Y average exercise is much higher. And the answer, or a big part of the answer, is in the training, in the. In the way they were trained. Right?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:30:23]:

Yeah. And usually, usually, yeah, it's confidence. And that comes from training.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:28]:

Yeah, There you go. Love it. And then kind of switching gears, obviously, just having so much experience in the industry. I'd love to know, what do you think makes a great leader in the hospitality space?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:30:40]:

Wow. I feel like I just got put on the spot, thought, what makes a great leader? Yeah, communication. Being able to communicate, being able to accept. I don't want to say criticism, but criticism knowing that you're not perfect and that, you know, sometimes you need to, you know, take a learning.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:02]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:31:03]:

You know, and. And I think, too, with the restaurant industry, you are on 24 7, like, every time you walk in that door. It's a smile. It's a. And sometimes that's hard, you know, to always have that smile on, but remembering to, you know, boost yourself up on your way in and make sure that you do have a smile and, you know, crank the music up before you walk in. You know, as you're driving into work, it was to me, that sort of. That leadership get out of your head because you're, you know, you need to. You need to be present, and you need to be.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:31:38]:

You need to be there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:39]:

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. It makes a ton of sense because it's. It's you. You know, as a. As a leader, you're doing that thing every day. But you got to remember, like, your guests might be saving up and coming up for that one time a month or special birthday or whatever. So it's like, you know, trying to remind yourself of also that it's like, yeah, this is just another Tuesday for you, and it's just a shift, but maybe for that family sitting there, it's like they saved up for that birthday.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:03]:

And it's like, you know, you can make or break their experience. Right? Like, you can. Which is crazy, but it's super interesting.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:32:11]:

And you, as a leader, you know, you can make or break that server.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:14]:

Exactly.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:32:15]:

If you. If your server is frustrated or, you know, upset with something that you've said and now they're going to the customer, well, everything's just changed for everybody in the room. Right?

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:24]:

So, yeah. Yeah. Cool. As we kind of start wrapping up, one question I always like to just get a sense of so I can look back at these. You know, just tech just keeps getting crazier, and AI and everything's automated, and robots love to hear what are some interesting kind of tech trends that, if any, that you find interesting, whether it's just personally or whether it's because of Joey's group, whatever it is, ldi. But, like, what are some trends that you're seeing or things you're excited about in that space?

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:32:53]:

I don't know that it's fair that I answered that question. I am a bit naive when it does come to the sort of the tech side, obviously, with Joy, Joey Restaurant group, we are using, obviously, iPads and everything for bringing in all of our orders. And so we have started to focus on using those as a training. As for our training material, when we have training groups, they're using articulate. So which is. Which is great. And I think it's, you know, it's that side of. It's Fun.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:33:24]:

To be honest with you, I use ChatGPT probably every day just to kind of.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:29]:

Yeah.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:33:30]:

Not. Yeah, just to kind of make sure that what I'm saying is maybe clearer.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:34]:

Yeah. But yeah, no, it's honestly there's so much to do with like even just little things. Like one thing I use it for as an example is sometimes like a discussion. Like if I'm thinking of something or I want to pitch this thing, it's like just conversation. If I was pitching this, find holes in my presentation, where would you. Oh, that's like it's great to get that initial round of feedback and then take that and. But yeah, there's a million and one use cases. But no, I'm always interested because it's cool to hear people's perspectives.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:05]:

You know, I've had people on that are loving the robotic side and you know, Chipotle with their avocado slicer auto robot and this bartending robot and like whatever. And then people that are more interested in the back of house tech that's coming up, people interested in kind of the self serve stuff. So just like I don't know, drone delivery. So it's always interesting but there's no right or wrong answer. I'm just always curious to see how people are, are kind of thinking about it and where they, where they see things.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:34:32]:

Things going well I think for, I mean in terms of learning and development and front of house. Yeah, I mean obviously for, from my background of fine dining, Dory Restaurant group, that's, that's a bit more, you know, premium casual. Yeah, it's still, it's still human. You need that human touch for sure. But from the learning and development side, I think there's a lot of things that can and will be really useful using the tech moving forward. So I need to get caught up for sure and any suggestions I would happily take. But yeah, I think, I mean it's such an amazing, it's. The opportunities are endless, I think.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:13]:

Yeah. And I mean in a weird way like, and I've said this before, it's. What I think will also happen is as more and more, let's say QSRS or fast casual etc are, you know, everything's tech, self serve kiosk and there's pros and cons, whatever but generally it's like less and less and less human. Human, human. I do think like places like a Joey, whether it's you know, premium casual or even just like fine dining, whatever, there'll be that, that more in demand in a way because it's going to be so rare to have that host and a server and that somebody come to your table. So it's like, you know, and that bartender that, you know. So it's like those things will probably even come more exclusive. That's my, that's my take.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:50]:

I could be wrong. I'll look back on this episode in two years and be like, wow, I was way wrong. People referred robot bartenders. But my take is like, there's gonna be obviously so much more tech. Yeah, there's gonna be so much more tech. But in a weird way, I think it's gonna help the kind of more full service restaurants because people are gonna be okay with the deck, but once in a while they're gonna be like, man, I just want to. I just want a human.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:36:11]:

Yeah, yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:13]:

Which. Which is interesting. Cool. Well, look, as we wrap up, I always like to end off with kind of like, what's next for you? What's next for ldi? So. And then just any plugs? So I know you plug the website, but once again, feel free. We can plug where people could find you and then just kind of like, what's next for either you, ldi, Joey's, all three, Whatever makes sense.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:36:36]:

Well, I think Joey speaks for itself. It is ever expanding. We've got new restaurants opening up. I think we've opening up in the next couple years. So we're moving fast and furious. I think most important to my heart right now is LDEI, obviously, as president. Yeah, I am excited to do, you know, to meet you and to be able to share the story of LDEI, because I do think it is. And it's important.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:37:02]:

It's close to my heart. I think women still need to know that, that they belong in this industry, even in the kitchen, and that it's important that we represent as well. And I do think, you know, back to our original conversation talking about, you know, support teams. Women tend to take everything on themselves. There is this sort of internal expectation that they have to do it all. They can have help, they can have assistance, they can ask questions. And it's important to be together. I think we lift each other up when we're, when we're together and we do thrive off of each other's energy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:44]:

So.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:37:44]:

So love that. Yeah, love to get the name out there. Love to see more women involved and also applying for scholarships, you know, if you're, if you're at that stage where you're looking to even change your career and get into the industry, I love that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:57]:

So for people listening in. Like we're going to put this in the podcast notes whether you're listening on Spotify, on Apple or watching this on YouTube. Like we'll put the links but definitely just as a reminder, L D E I and check it out like, like like we said chapters all over the world from, from from what I'm seeing on the website. So check it out, see how you can join. But I love that we have a lot of restaurants or listeners. I don't even know what the breakdown is male or female but I imagine there's got to be a decent percentage that are women. So for all those women out there listening, feel free to check out l dashi.org and Stephanie, thanks again for for joining us for sharing your passion. We really appreciate having you on the WISKing it all podcast.

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Stephanie Jaeger [00:38:43]:

Thank you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:44]:

If you want to learn more about WISK, head to WISK AI and book a demo.

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