Restaurants as groceries, Uber Eats, OpenTable, relief funds and coronavirus shelter-in-place orders
Mike Beltrán comes back to the podcast for an update on his first week in the coronavirus shutdown, how Chug's Diner became a specialty grocery store in response to the crisis, and what relief might be available to Miami area restaurant staff who were laid off in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
We also touch on Uber Eats, OpenTable, and the sloppy rollout of the City of Miami's shelter-in-place order.
Check out the Miami Restaurant Employee Relief Fund mentioned in this episode:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/miamirestaurantemployeerelieffund
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Pan Con Podcast
Transcript
Nick Jiménez: Welcome.
Mike Beltrán: Oh God.
Nick Jiménez: This is where video is good.
Mike Beltrán: I'm already fucking spent and we haven't even started.
Nick Jiménez: Welcome to a new episode of Pan Con Podcast. I'm Nick Jimenez. Rejoined ... rejoined by chef Michael Beltrán,
Mike Beltrán: Nick and company.
Nick Jiménez: Sorry. Rejoined by and co.
Mike Beltrán: And company.
Nick Jiménez: I like how you don't want to go with my abbreviation.
Mike Beltrán: It's dumb. Just say company.
Nick Jiménez: Get the fuck outta here. Alright, so, uh, on this episode of the podcast we are going to...
Mike Beltrán: We're gonna talk about how bad your coffee is.
Nick Jiménez: Get the fuck outta here. Jesus. I drank a cup... What are you talking about
Mike Beltrán: You didn't drink it all. Look at how much coffee is left in your cup.
Nick Jiménez: Man. I'm gonna fuck you up on Yelp when you're out here. Two stars. I'll give you an extra one just to be nice. No, we're going to talk about how things have been for you over the last week. So it's been roughly a week since we had a conversation with you. At that point. You basically had like just started pickup at Ariete. Cantina had just kind of gotten going at Chug's. So we're going to sort of bring people up to speed today. We are recording this Wednesday, March 25.
Mike Beltrán: I think we're a full week into the shutdown of dine-in restaurants in Dade County. Miami-Dade County.
Nick Jiménez: A little more than a week cause it started like, it was really, really on a Monday or a Sunday right?
Mike Beltrán: No, I mean, we operated, we were those people dining in the restaurant on Monday and Tuesday last week.
Nick Jiménez: Okay. So we're gonna get into that, but before we do a word from our sponsor, La Caja China.
Mike Beltrán: Oh yeah. Here we go.
[BREAK FOR AD]
Nick Jiménez: Okay. So Mike, I'm going to ask you a lot of dumb questions as you put it.
Mike Beltrán: Can't wait.
Nick Jiménez: So it's been a week. Take me through what has this last week been like for you. I know there have been some changes. So walk me through when you made those changes and why.
Mike Beltrán: So I think, and we talked about this off the air, the plethora of dumb questions that people keep asking me. Cause it's all like, just so generic. Like, you know, "What about your business has changed?" Well, fucking everything has fucking changed. Not just one thing. Everything has fucking changed. I mean, there's not one thing that's the same that we did a week ago or two weeks ago or whatever. You know? So how did things begin to change? Well, a week and a half ago, we essentially told all of our hourly employees that they were on call, which then we ended up laying them all off. So that's one thing that's changed, right? That was like step one, right? Hourly employees, like how their lives changed and in effect when their life changes, our life changes because they are a huge part of what we do on a day-to-day basis and they are essentially the backbone of what makes every restaurant special. So we put all of our hourly employees on leave and then we ended up laying them all off. And then we just had to get very creative. You know, Tuesday of last week was the last time that we did a dine-in service. We did I think Ariete did nine people and I think Nave did 20. Something like that. So all day we did 29 people. And then the next day, we had a large, with my entire staff of chefs and managers and stuff. And we just had to be incredibly creative. We had to think about every single way to generate some kind of revenue to keep the business above water. It was shifting everything we had done in the past to be completely different. I referred to it ... 'cause I box for fun ... it's very similar to like just dodging a bunch of punches. Everything changes on a daily basis and you need to change with the times. Cause if not, you're going to fucking fail and you're just going to drown. So in the last week everything about life has changed. Not one thing is the same as it was before. Our food is not the same. The focus every day is not the same. You know? Right now we're fighting to find ways to bring back our hourly staff in any kind of capacity. You know, from the first day I thought Chug's was going to do decently well. And it does okay considering the times. But it's really like that concept people feel very comfortable with. So we turned the entire front part of the restaurant into a grocery store, which will launch tomorrow. And that's something I thought I would never do. You know, like, I didn't think I was ever gonna try to open a grocery store, but I'm trying to fill a void and a need. And you know, like when you go to the grocery store, you find pretty much commodity produce and stuff like that. So we're just trying to offer people something different.
Nick Jiménez: You said you'd never thought you would do that. Do you say that because in your mind it was a negative thing?
Mike Beltrán: No, no. I mean, I just didn't set out in my life to own a grocery store. Life is cyclical, right? So like, I worked at a Winn-Dixie when I was 13. I feel like I'm right back there, you know? But really as we sat there every day, we had all these things that people needed which were, you know ... People need bread. We can make bread, we make fresh bread. You know, people want comforting things like ice cream. Chef Devin can make ice cream and her ice cream is amazing. People want to do things at home like cook pasta. So we have all of our pasta that we make in house. So now we're going to sell it by the pound. People want access to farm produce from Homestead. You know, they want better things. Even in this time, I think it's very important and not just that, we need to continue to keep our local economy going. And, you know, being involved with the farmers is huge for that. 'Cause if not, we're going to stifle everything. Everything at the end of the day when it comes to food starts at the farm, you know? Not everyone is a great cook, so we're creating like, you know ... Didn't you just buy one? A veggie pack. Yeah. You know, you could do a mixed vegetable pack and it's like 13 bucks with all vegetables for Homestead. It's just trying to be creative, right? And just by creating that one grocery thing, I was able to employ a couple more people that last week I didn't have a job for.
Nick Jiménez: Yeah. Let's pause just cause you've mentioned some of this. Talk a little bit about the sourcing of all that stuff. I saw some pictures that you put. You and I haven't spoken a whole lot in the last week, but talk about what that process was and what your thinking was.
Mike Beltrán: I mean, Margie ... It's incredible, right? The way that life works. Because three weeks ago people weren't thinking about their local farm and how to get good produce and people weren't thinking about their local butcher shop. But right now I think people are turning to that more because they're not able to go to their like easy quick fix, which is like a Publix or a Winn-Dixie or whatever. They have to go the extra step in order to find something that they really want because it may not be at the store. So like Babe's, they're doing very well, right? And Margie, she saw her CSA grow 30 percent in like a two week span, which is huge. So basically I called her, I said I wanted to go see her. You know, I go to see them a couple times a year and just, you know, what is it that you have too much of, can we take some of this off of your hands? Can we sell this? Can we use this on one of our pizzas or whatever? Like so that way we can keep this thing going. Cause that's part of who we are anyways. And now because life is different, doesn't mean that we're going to stop. You need to bend. Like, you need to be able to adjust to whatever situation you're in. Right now we're in a real fucked up situation, right? No one has any money. Restaurants are not open. The ones that are open, you know, I talk to some people that are doing decently well. I talk to other people that they're not doing any fucking business and their business was doing extremely well. You know, so it's a real fucked up time because three weeks ago you could have been fucking crushing it. You know, you're working your ass off, putting out great food, great service. And then now we're all like, "Well, what the fuck do we do now?" You know? So, and this all goes back to what we talked about like a week ago, which is that there is no plan right now. We all, we shut everything down with no fucking plan, right? So right now, a lot of these people that own businesses are very creative on purpose. You know, like, they've been successful because they are creative and they're all continuing to be creative to keep their business afloat and to keep them going. Camila at All day, she's doing a grocery. Threefold is doing a grocery. Everyone's doing curbside and pickup. And you know, all those people, I think the one thing that's more evident than ever is that ... and this is like, I got to go back to like yesterday. And we spoke yesterday, right? When the shelter in place thing? Like, we're all sheltered in place already. Everything is ... We're all already sheltered in place. So it's like for you to ... It's almost reckless for them to go out and make this statement cause then basically they're saying like "Oh no you can't go pick up food either." So then now they're going to depend on the third-party delivery system, right? Which they all take 35% of our revenue for whatever they sell it for. So you know, 10 bucks, the restaurant only receives seven. So now the restaurant is going to be suffocate even more. So there's no plan. Again, they do more shit without a fucking plan and it puts us in a bad situation. So we continue this trend of like we're just reactionary instead of being proactive, right? And we're reacting and we're not thinking about what we're reacting to and what the reacting is ... It's reckless. In some ways it's reckless because shelter in place, no one knows what the fuck that means. I don't know what the fuck that means. That means I can't go anywhere? It's the same thing like ... Ariete's in Coconut Grove. This is for the people that aren't in Miami.
Nick Jiménez: It's an old Miami neighborhood.
Mike Beltrán: Right. It's in coconut Grove. So the BID, I forgot what the fuck that means, but they send out an email last night saying "Coconut Grove is under shelter-in-place." And then I respond to them. I was like, "What the fuck does that mean? Can you stop being reckless? Can you give people more guidelines of what that means?" They can go pick up their fucking food if they want to. Like, you cannot just tell them that now you have to depend on delivery. Cause now all restaurants that are just trying to stay above water now they're really gonna fucking suffocate and they're all going to really fucking close.
Nick Jiménez: I will say, I think some of this is also a fault of local media. So you and I were texting about it last night and the reports that I was reading, which were mainly from, just cause they're the first ones that come up in search when I was looking for it, were from some of the local TV affiliates, like their website stories. And their reporting on it was wording to the effect of ...
Mike Beltrán: Ese mismo. Business Improvement District.
Nick Jiménez: ... so "People can leave their homes for businesses such as grocery." That's how they reported it. When you actually look at the city's order, it specifies you can still do pickup and delivery restaurants.
Mike Beltrán: Yes.
Nick Jiménez: So part of the fault there is of local media being lazy and just, in a situation where people actually need to be able to ... What is your product for if it doesn't give me a clear sense of what this means? I put a lot of the blame on local media there. You're going to have a lot of confused consumers.
Mike Beltrán: How do 95 percent of the people get their information?
Nick Jiménez: Through the media, right. And nobody's reading Francis Suarez's full text of his order. They're reading a story on it that's like five paragraphs long on WSVN-whatever-dot-com and if that article is shit, it impacts you and it impacts them and it impacts the economy.
Mike Beltrán: Correct.
Nick Jiménez: And so there's a lot of recklessness. I also think it's nuts that the city would issue that kind of order and not go the extra mile to make sure that you're clear, that residents are clear. There should have been more there, but there wasn't, so there's a lot of blame to go around is my point.
Mike Beltrán: Sure.
Nick Jiménez: Let's pause here cause we do have some people asking questions if you want to field some of these. TheWolfofKendall asks two questions. Number one, "Have you read the book Who Moved My Cheese?"
Mike Beltrán: No, but sounds like a book I'd like to read.
Nick Jiménez: So there's that. So your answer there, WolfofKendall is no. His other question was "Do you work with a local broadliner?"
Mike Beltrán: Like a Sysco or something like that?
Nick Jiménez: Yeah, I mean, I don't know who the local ones would be, but yeah, I guess.
Mike Beltrán: Yeah, I mean, when I think of broadliner, I think of like Cheney, Sysco, things like that. Yeah. I mean definitely.
Nick Jiménez: So, yeah. Then finally notsocuda ... This doesn't look like a question, but "The problem is that Trump is still treating this as a small thing. If he treated the issue with more awareness, we would be better off." That's more of a comment. I mean, honestly, that may very well be true, but it's not Trump's fault that the rollout of Francis Suarez's order and the media's coverage of it was garbage. And then nanoglutenfree is telling me that I'm 100 percent right on the media, so thanks nanoglutenfree.
Mike Beltrán: You've been vindicated. Nice work.
Nick Jiménez: Yeah, that's one. So far, so far we're one to nothing. I have one. You have zero.
Mike Beltrán: Great.
Nick Jiménez: That's the changes.
Mike Beltrán: There's more and more changes, more changes. I think you're seeing a group of people, when I say like the community that I live within, be forced to find any kind of which way to make money. Right? Which is both good and bad. I mean, people are really seeing like what they're made out of. Uh, and I think all at the same time people are starting to see like how essential I think the restaurant community really is to a city as a whole. And I think the longterm effect of this we're going to feel for a long time. I do think that people need to kind of like understand something, and I've said it like a million times, and maybe I like what I really do is I really hope that I'm wrong, which is right now if we continue down the trend that we're living in, people spending money on food to-go, take-out or whatever, that shit's going to stop. I do think it's going to stop. I think if we continue not have jobs and we continue to just not work, people are not going to want to spend money on getting a pizza or getting fritas or whatever it may be. So we need to be very smart with the money that we do have right now because it's not like we're making any money. Right now we're just trying to stay afloat. And I think longterm, unless there's something that happens here longterm, I don't know how long this is going to last, you know? There's a lot of like, conversations happening. Also something else that changed was... I don't know why this was such a big deal, but like pre-packaged cocktails, right? Like you couldn't pre-batch your own cocktails and sell them. And I think that does make sense. Right? Cause like you don't know what the fuck people are putting in there.
Nick Jiménez: I mean I understand that, but at the same time, if you're licensing somebody to serve me the cocktail for me to drink it right there, why would it be presumed that it's less safe for me to take it home.
Mike Beltrán: That's true. Yeah. But I mean when you're at a restaurant, you know, and you're sitting at a bar, you're watching someone make you a drink. Right? So I mean, I guess that's why they had an issue with the pre batching of cocktails. Anyways, one day it was good, then the next day it wasn't good and then someone got in trouble for doing it. And then it's just like, there's so much, like so many people are saying things, but they're not like, it's not definitive. There's no, like one person's saying, "This is actually correct and this one's not actually correct." I feel very fortunate that there's a couple people in our community that are like lawyers that have nothing to do with food. They just like food, right? Lawyers, insurance people. And we all know who they are and you know who you are that sit there and are giving people like free advice every single day. Read this document, read this part of this document. And I think that's another thing too, that's changing as people are understanding more of this backend paperwork saying that they didn't know before. Right? Like Andy, which we all know, he created a whole website that gives you all the information you need for insurance, things that are going on right now. I mean, that's amazing.
Nick Jiménez: Where can you find that? We'll put a link in the description of this episode.
Mike Beltrán: We'll do that. Yeah. And I'm just giving people free advice every day when there's new things that are dropping, he's saying, "Look, I added this. Everyone go look at this." Like, you know, now, because of the whole third party delivery platform and how that is really a terrible, terrible thing to use. Do not use UberEATS, do not use Postmates. It's not good for the restaurant. Now there's been an insurance function. This is, you can insure someone to drive something and it's a lot cheaper than it was three weeks ago. I don't know why all of a sudden now they did that. They should've done it before. But you know, now it's like a thing.
Nick Jiménez: So you hope that that stays with us, that it's not just temporary.
Mike Beltrán: I hope that it stays with us. Yeah. I mean, yeah, i see lots of confusion and no clear rules, someone says here, which is absolutely factual. Like there's lots of confusion.
Nick Jiménez: The thing is that I think, you know, and, and yes, that's true. And the communication leaves more to be desired than you could even put into words. But at the same time, part of the issue is if you have, let's suppose that every rule is crystal clear and they communicate it in the perfect way. If there are a million fucking rules, you're never going to be clear on them. So if there are too many rules, you can't, you can't keep track of it, which is why big companies and you know, frankly, as far as I'm concerned, I don't fault them. But the more people you have, the more you can afford for one of those people's full time job to be to keep track of the rules
Mike Beltrán: Yes.
Nick Jiménez: So, but if there are too many rules, then yeah, they've essentially, whether this was the intention or not, a trap has been built for you and you're going to hit the wrong part of that trap at some point. If you're around for long enough, you're going to do something that's illegal. You can't leave your house in the morning and come back to your home at night without committing a crime somewhere in between.
Mike Beltrán: Well, we all technically did something illegal today. I'm not sheltering in place right now. This is not my fucking house. I'm at your house. So I broke the rules.
Nick Jiménez: Ah, but you're not in the City of Miami.
Mike Beltrán: Ah, ¿vistes?
Nick Jiménez: And besides, I'm sorry, Pan Con Podcast is essential.
Mike Beltrán: I guess so.
Nick Jiménez: And you delivered food.
Mike Beltrán: I did deliver food.
Nick Jiménez: You did deliver food. This was the loophole.
Mike Beltrán: I did. I did deliver food.
Nick Jiménez: And you're approximately 24 feet away from me right now.
Mike Beltrán: That's also not true at all. I just... There's no clear-cut anything right now. And it's like every day thinking of a new way to essentially make some kind of money to keep us afloat is my entire job and the job of so many other people out there right now trying to keep their business afloat right now. Cause I know a lot of people like me are like liquidating their wine inventory. Right? Eventually it's going to be liquidated and you're not going to have anything left. So then you're going to be stuck with just your food sales.
Nick Jiménez: Are you doing delivery on your own or no? You don't have any of your staff delivering food?
Mike Beltrán: No.
Nick Jiménez: Is that something you thought about?
Mike Beltrán: Yes. Just today.
Nick Jiménez: How much of the thinking there is changed by DeSantis rolling back, at least temporarily, the restrictions on delivering alcohol?
Mike Beltrán: None, really. The alcohol portion, none. I mean it always has to do with food and always has to do with the insurance part of like delivering your own food. Delivering anything on your own. I will say that, you know, the Grove, coconut Grove, they did change their ... You know, those freebie things? They changed those to like delivery inside of Coconut Grove, which I thought was a good idea.
Nick Jiménez: The freebies are, it's like golf carts almost...
Mike Beltrán: Yeah, you know, basically it's like your own free, like Uber, like you know, if you live within this parameter they'll pick you up and they'll take you somewhere within the city. They changed that to like a delivery. It hasn't really caught on the way that it should, just because people are very comfortable with using Uber and people don't know how terrible it really is. They just don't understand how terrible it really is. Listen, I'm not the person that's going to say that now Uber should be doing something that they haven't set themselves up to do forever. Forever, we knew that they were terrible. Forever, we knew who they were. Forever, we knew that they're not part of our community. They're not my fucking friend. I have no idea where the fuck they are. They got a bunch of fucking schmucks that work for them that every week it's a different representative for the community. Cause they suck, right? They're not going to change. They're not going to suck less now. Now they're going to suck less cause the world's coming to an end? Listen, we all know that they lose money, right? Uber as a company loses money.
Nick Jiménez: Billions.
Mike Beltrán: All they're doing is creating technology that they eventually want to sell one day. I don't know shit about shit, but from my understanding, that's what they're doing. So how they make some money back is UberEATS.
Nick Jiménez: And part of that, again, this is me editorializing what a word of the day.
Mike Beltrán: Oh man, Nick, if you don't know what the word editorialize means, you look it up and there's a picture of Nick Jimenez right next to it.
Nick Jiménez: Yes. Cause I'm the half of this conversation that brings the opinion. So part of that is also again, government getting in the way in a less direct way. But the more obstacles you put for Uber to be profitable on the driving passengers side, the more they have to look to things like hiking prices or setting exorbitant prices for restaurants to drive your food around.
Mike Beltrán: Right.
Nick Jiménez: So you know, but Uber does lose like literally billions of dollars every quarter. Not every year. Every quarter they lose billions of dollars. So they can't be expected to lower their prices that much.
Mike Beltrán: Not even that, they don't care to.
Nick Jiménez: But how could they? That's the thing. If you were losing money and somebody came to you and said "Your product is too expensive. Lower the prices." You'd be like, "Go fuck yourself." That's what your answer would be. Like, who the fuck are you to tell me that I should lose more money than I'm losing?
Mike Beltrán: Well, I think that the truth and the only way to take the power away from these people that have created this essentially like what people are saying, a lot of restaurant owners say "This is the partner I never wanted." But it's also the partner that you brought in. You brought them in.
Nick Jiménez: How much of an effort just to stay on this topic ... And this really could be like its own episode, so let's not spend too much time on it. Are you aware of any effort to, for lack of a better word, collectively bargain? Like have you been approached by other restaurant owners to say, Hey, let's stop dealing with these people?
Mike Beltrán: It's fear. And it's, and it's fear that I understand. Because there's restaurants, like for instance, let's say you're a pizza place. You're a pizza place and you sell your pies on Uber for 17 bucks, right? It's a good pizza, great pizza, whatever it may be. The cost on the pizza is very low. Okay? So the fact that they're taking 30 percent of the $17, you're still making, you know ... Your cost on the pizza's probably 30 percent at that point. So you're still making good amount of money. So if I go to that person, the pizza owner, but they're selling a hundred pies a day and they're making $11 from that, they're making 1100 bucks. For them, they just see the $1,100 they're not looking at that portion of the money that they're losing. Which is six or seven bucks. Because to them, they built the model so So they're making money after the money that they're losing to Uber anyways. You know what I mean? You feel me?
Nick Jiménez: I feel you.
Mike Beltrán: It's the other people, the ones that have a higher food cost and maybe their food isn't built for things like delivery. Like for instance, Ariete is not built for delivery. Nave is not built for delivery. So we do not do that. Like, I mean the venison is going to be good regardless, but the venison with sauce Diane is not going to be the same experience out of a plastic box as it is going to be on a plate in the restaurant the way that I want you to experience it. So it's like, I didn't set that function up. My food costs at that point would be crazy if I was losing 35 percent. But then then then there's the other way of doing it, which is I'm going to raise my prices 30 percent so now market perception is you're fucking expensive because some people have never heard of you before, but they're looking at you on this app and they're scrolling through the same...
Nick Jiménez: Yeah, next to Denny's.
Mike Beltrán: Yeah, next to Denny's, saying "Coño, this fucking venison's 45 bucks. De pinga." It's really not $45, but you've never been to the restaurant to know that it's not 45 bucks. You know? But then you go to the people and you say, "Listen, we should all get together and say...
Nick Jiménez: These people being other restaurants?
Mike Beltrán: Other restaurants, "Fuck these guys. We're not going to fucking use them. I don't want to use them. They're a bunch of fucking dirt bags. There's taking money from us." You know, obviously very animated, right? All they see is the fact that they're not going to make 1100 ducks, 1100 bucks.
Nick Jiménez: Or 1100 ducks.
Mike Beltrán: Whatever. They're not thinking about the $600 they could be making. You understand? Cause they build it. So they're still making money off the $1,100.
Nick Jiménez: No, I get it. I get that 100 percent.
Mike Beltrán: It's hard to like go and collectively bargain for this.
Nick Jiménez: Of course. But that is a failing of these restaurateurs. It's not Uber's failing. If Uber is in a position where people are giving them their money... When was the last time you told somebody, "No man, don't give me your money. You should be paying me less."
Mike Beltrán: I understand what you're saying. I'm not disagreeing with you. What I'm saying is we let the snake in. We can't expect the snake now to be like, "You know what? I want to be a nice guy." My can't expect that.
Nick Jiménez: I just think that it's misdiagnosing the problem to even refer to them as snakes.
Mike Beltrán: Why?
Nick Jiménez: Because you let you let it in. What you let in was a dog you let in a dog that you couldn't afford. It's not a bad dog. It just came in because you left the door open. There's bacon all over the floor. It's a bad analogy.
Mike Beltrán: Terrible analogy. It's a terrible analogy.
Nick Jiménez: Kick the dog out, but you don't have to hate the dog.
Mike Beltrán: No, it's a terrible... Because people are seeing it as a necessary evil...
Nick Jiménez: Because those people are wrong.
Mike Beltrán: Go back six months ago when the coronavirus didn't exist. COVID-19 was not a thing.
Nick Jiménez: Right.
Mike Beltrán: It probably existed but we didn't know about it. Nothing happened. Everyone was just scraping to try to create, to make more money. Right? And they were like, "This is a necessary evil that we have to do. That we have to have." Right? That's what they're saying. Even though I don't believe that that's the case. I believe that you don't need them. And then the better part is that they know that they're snakes and they're saying, listen ... It's just like OpenTable. OpenTable is another one that's a fucking snake too because those guys, whether people... And people don't know this, right? People have no idea, but OpenTable, every time you make a reservation through their system online, they charge you a dollar. If you're an OpenTable member and you want to get a prime time slot and the restaurant is suffering trying to create business, they'll give you slots they want to fill. They'll say you'll get extra points on your open table membership, which I don't know what the fuck that means either. They charge the restaurant $8 per person at that point, so OpenTable that's made money like millions and millions of dollars off of all of our work for years, do you know what they send? What they sent out to the world when all this happened at the beginning? We've noticed a large amount of cancellations. You guys should buy gift cards. Gift cards are huge liability. I dunno if people want to understand that. But right now, yes you're putting cash in your pocket, but longterm it's a huge liability.
Nick Jiménez: Let's make this a segue, because I've also seen... Let's just give up on talking about the changes with your restaurant because we've kind of covered them. You got the bodega thing going on, you're sourcing from local farmers, all that stuff. And that is a thing that I think other people should look into if they haven't already. Would you agree?
Mike Beltrán: What are we looking into?
Nick Jiménez: Following this bodega model. Finding other ways to repurpose the goods that you're already sourcing.
Mike Beltrán: Yes.
Nick Jiménez: Okay. So we've talked Uber, OpenTable, talk about this gift card thing. Cause I've seen a lot of restaurant owners and others treating the gift card thing like this is the campaign to follow, to keep the restaurants alive.
Mike Beltrán: It's not. It's nice. It's a nice thing, right? But long term, unless you're a really big restaurant, it's a liability because yes, I think the metric on it is like 20 to 35 percent of the people don't redeem their gift card within the timeframe that they're supposed to, right? Which is like you're given a gift card and it's like...
Nick Jiménez: And after that it's as good as cash basically. For what you paid for it.
Mike Beltrán: Exactly. Yeah. But now, now we're all going to be in a very cash strapped position. So we're all just like, "Give us cash however you can." But long term, when we reopen, if you've, if you divvied out $20,000 in gift cards, they're going to come redeem those things.
Nick Jiménez: Sorry. Pause. Two important questions. I'm sorry to do this. salserachef26 — this is the teacher who we're trying to set up ... obviously it's not gonna happen right now ... but the field trip. She is the culinary arts teacher at Sunset Miami High.
Mike Beltrán: Yes. Great work.
Nick Jiménez: She also has a family business that makes sangria and she'd like to know if we want some sent to us.
Mike Beltrán: Sure. Right now I need all the fucking alcohol I can get.
Nick Jiménez: So there you go. There's your answer on that. Diandra who was in our last episode would like to know whether we are six feet apart.
Mike Beltrán: We are not.
Nick Jiménez: We are not. We were six feet apart and then.
Mike Beltrán: I moved closer.
Nick Jiménez: You moved closer.
Mike Beltrán: I did. I did. Yeah.
Nick Jiménez: He's very uncomfortable being far away from me.
Mike Beltrán: It's, that's not the thing. If you were to look at the floor here, Nick built a terrible floor so you cannot sit and then not get stuck into the floor. We're obviously going to edit the shit out.
Nick Jiménez: You could have been all the way over there.
Mike Beltrán: I could have, you're right.
Nick Jiménez: You just want to be close to me.
Mike Beltrán: I don't at all want to be close to you.
Nick Jiménez: Don't hide it, Mike.
Mike Beltrán: The gift card liability. If anyone knows who Nick Kokonas is...
Nick Jiménez: The name rings a bell...
Mike Beltrán: He is tthe owner and partner of the Alinea group. So if you've read the book, you know the story with him and Grant Achatz, which is one of the most influential chefs ever on the face of the planet. If you don't have the Twitter, I feel like now is a good time to get on the Twitter.
Nick Jiménez: You have a Twitter machine?
Mike Beltrán: (33:43)
I have a Twitter machine. I, that's where I get a lot of my news. That's why a lot of my news is bad. So he is very active on Twitter in telling people pros and cons of certain things business-wise. Now, the one thing to remember about Nick Kokonas is that he also owns a model of a restaurant that is essentially $400 to $500 per person to dine at. So it's a very different experience. Now they have other restaurants too – Roister, Aviary. Not all of them are Alinea, but the Alinea model is you're paying 400 bucks to eat there so they could have more capital than we do. There's a good chance that they do. They're also also booked six months ahead of time. Not only that, Nick Kokonas has done away with OpenTable cause he saw how devious they were and created his own. But again, the demand is so high that he can do that. At Ariete, I wish the demand was that high to dine there, but it's not. So I can't create my own reservation system in order to subvert the fees that OpenTable I have to live with. But anyways...
Nick Jiménez: Somewhere there's an out of work software developer who should...
Mike Beltrán: No, but Tock, his system, is great, you know, but the problem is that OpenTable's got 25 years behind them. 20, 25 years of operating. So they obviously have a platform that's much bigger than everyone else's. So I go to you, you ever heard of Tock? You?
Nick Jiménez: No.
Mike Beltrán: Exactly. That's the problem. You heard of OpenTable?
Nick Jiménez: Yeah.
Mike Beltrán: Okay. That's what I mean. OpenTable's even got like widgets. So you could send people like a widget or whatever on a text.
Nick Jiménez: I understand that there's a competitive advantage with open table. However, unlike let's say like a search engine or certain other things that are themselves, the end product, if you switch to a platform I'd never heard of and it was on your website. I would just use that.
Mike Beltrán: You're a loyal customer.
Nick Jiménez: No, I'm not that loyal.
Mike Beltrán: Whatever. You're pretty loyal.
Nick Jiménez: No, no, no. But like, honestly, like I've made reservations at restaurants that I didn't know the people behind them or that I wasn't from the place.
Mike Beltrán: You know who uses Tock? The Surf Club. A Thomas Keller restaurant.
Nick Jiménez: And it works for them, I'm assuming.
Mike Beltrán: Yeah, I mean I've used it to go there. So you know it's basically like I'm a prepaid system. It's like you're buying a ticket to a show, you know what I mean? So like when I went to Alinea, I had to prepay for a reservation that I got that was four months from when I made it, you know what I mean? So that way they guarantee themselves money. Now obviously because of everything that's going on. I'm pretty sure they had to refund people lots of money, but they still have more money than you know, we do, I would say. But anyways, he goes into the specifics of why the gift card thing is bad and it's basically the longterm liability of, you know, the cash that you are just using to survive right now. Eventually down the road you're going to need that to reopen your business and to become stable longterm because we are not going to be stable. Like when we reopen in two months, a month, whatever. Like we're all gonna be hampering for cash and we're all going to be much slower than we are than we were when we closed. I mean, he makes great sense. Initially I'm like, "Yeah, fuck yeah, let's sell gift cards." And then after I read that, I was like, "Fuck no, I'm concerned." So like we don't push the gift card thing a lot. There are some people that push it and I understand why they push it because everyone needs to create some kind of cash flow right now. Right? The longterm, we're going to need cashflow then too, because at that point we're going to have full payrolls, right? We're going to have a full food inventory. We're going to have full everything, but then there's not going to be any cash to back it. Do you understand what I'm saying? So there's pros and cons. The pro, I understand the con, I understand. I understand them both. There's no good and bad here. It's like, it's just the lesser of two evils. You have to have no cash now or no cash later. Which one would you rather? So that's it. That's the gift card thing.
Nick Jiménez: That's the gift card thing. What have you seen outside of ... And I know that you've had limited bandwidth to like even be aware of what's going on outside of your restaurants, but we talked the last time that we did a podcast with you, that you had been in some communication with other people in the restaurant business.
Mike Beltrán: Lots of communication.
Nick Jiménez: Any ideas that have been floated around even if they didn't work for you, that sounded like "That's interesting." No, I mean I think a lot of people are trending towards the same direction. Like "How do we make it easier for people to buy food from us?" Whether it be from like a grocery function, a prepared food that you can cook at home function. Everyone is like taking their model and like turning it upside down. I mean, you know, when you have like places like Manresa on the West coast saying that you can, you know, feed your family of four, that's crazy. I mean, you're talking about like one of the highest dining experiences in the world and they're like, "Here, we want to feed you for a family of four." Like it's weird. Alinea too. You know, Alinea is doing packages for four. Locally, I mean, restaurants like Alter changed their entire concept to a barbecue concept, you know? Everyone is reinventing themselves and, you know, the one thing I love about food and beverage and I always have is the vast majority of personalities you have and like capabilities that people have and the creativity that they have. And you're really seeing it all now. Like Brad changing his entire concept for being higher-end fine dining to being a barbecue concept so people can pick it up and go. I mean, all the food looks fucking delicious. So yeah, people are gonna go and they're going to buy it. It just shows also the community wanting to support each other. I mean there's a lot of that, you know? Boia De, which is a newer restaurant that they did Italian food. They're still doing an Italian-ish food. But I went and I bought food for my entire staff and it was like fried chicken sandwiches and tramezzinis and salads and you know ... stuff, whatever. Niven is basically doing like a grocery thing in front of Ghee with all the produce that he grows. You know, like people are, are adapting and they're becoming as creative as they can so they can make it through this because we don't know when this ends, which is an important thing to note. We don't know when it ends. So to say to say that people are making money right now, it's a tough statement. No one's making money right now. They're just surviving. And then I really do believe that this is going to end eventually cause people are gonna run out of fucking money. So... Anyways.
Nick Jiménez: Alright. So we are maybe like 30, 40 minutes in. Is there anything we haven't touched on that you want to get into before we wrap this particular episode up?
Mike Beltrán: I had a situation.
Nick Jiménez: Okay.
Mike Beltrán: I was at a friend of mine's establishment and he had put up a sign.
Nick Jiménez: Oh, we talked about this.
Mike Beltrán: Did we?
Nick Jiménez: Jason. Yeah, he talked about it.
Mike Beltrán: Oh he did?
Nick Jiménez: Yeah. You can say who it is and the whole thing. But he told us that he only found out about it after you told him. So why don't you tell us what happened in the parking lot?
Mike Beltrán: Right. So, well, I'm glad that he said that. I didn't want to like put it all out there, but yeah. So, you know, I was kinda like doing around early morning and I went to El Bagel and I bought a coffee and I went somewhere else to see how they were doing and they were actually closed. I went to Vice City and they just paused operations for now. And then I was like, "You know, fuck it. Let me just go get a sandwich at Babe's." And then, you know, there's like a little line there and he's got a sign on the front that says only two people at a time which in today's climate is understandable. There's rules now. There was actually a restaurant in Coconut Grove that got shut down because they had too many people inside of it.
Nick Jiménez: It's also a pretty small place. So it doesn't even feel unreasonable when you're there.
Mike Beltrán: Absolutely. And I totally agree with that. The restaurant that did get shut down is massive, but they shouldn't have had anyone in there to begin with. Anyways, some fucking little schmuck opens the door and he starts giving Jason some lip service, right? He's just like, "Sir, can you wait? You know there's only two people at a time." And the kid keeps on like fucking jabbing at the mouth and he closes the door. And I'm like, "Dude, could you fucking relax? Like who the fuck are you? Why don't you fucking thank this guy for just being open to be able to fucking serve you food? Like, instead of being a fucking shmuck, why don't you have a little bit of decency and understand that what we're going through right now collectively is changing everything. So whatever you did yesterday is going to be different today. You know what I mean? So just cause you're an entitled little rich fuck from I don't know where doesn't mean that you can go in there and fucking treat this guy however the fuck you want. Cause that's not how this shit works now. The guy's got rules. And the rules now, if he doesn't follow those fucking rules, he can get shut down. Like I would've gotten that kid's fucking package thrown it in his face and told him to never fucking come back again. But Jason's a much nicer person than me, I guess.
Nick Jiménez: He is.
Mike Beltrán: Good. The only thing I would say is that people need to have a little decency. Like we're all kind of learning how this is supposed to go. We had a couple instances at Chugs cause we have the same system now. The front of Chug's is bigger than the front of Babe's. So people want to walk in there and they want to sit down. You can't sit down. We actually took that one bench that was uncomfortable anyways. We took it out. Can't sit there anymore. Well that's where we have the grocery now anyways. But it's like times are changing and people need to be a little more understanding of that. On the good side of that whole experience, when I was able to walk into the shop, one of my cooks was there working and I was just so happy to see him working because I know that like these guys, you know, like everyone's out of work and you know, like Jason is going through a very like different time, you know, they're busy and he's trying to figure it all out. And then Alex, which is one of my cooks, great fucking kid, works super hard. To tell that guy I didn't have any work for him broke my fucking heart. When I walked in there and saw him, I was so happy and emotional. And then he said that it was like dad just walked in and I told him to go fuck himself cause I'm not that much older than him. But it was like...
Mike Beltrán: You look old as fuck, though.
Mike Beltrán: Fuck you. It's just, it was very good to see, you know. But that's that whole story. Have a little decency, people.
Nick Jiménez: All right. So with that, on that note of having a little decency, it sounded angry, but it's a good message. So I'm going to say that's a high note. We're going to wrap up this episode of the podcast. Before we do all of our plugging and whatever, I want to give a shout out to Diandra from Yelp's mom. Diandra from Yelp's mom got a link to our last episode that Diandra lamas was on and sent it around to her department at her job, confused, telling everybody that this was her daughter's podcast and that she would be continuing to publish them. So congratulations to Diandra's mom on her hostile takeover of Pan Con Podcast.
Mike Beltrán: With Diandra Lamas and co.
Nick Jiménez: We look forward to reporting directly to the Andrea and her mom.
Mike Beltrán: I'd like to say the Andrew's mom also cooked my entire staff dinner. Chili. Delicious.
Nick Jiménez: It was good?
Mike Beltrán: It was amazing. Thank you for that.
Nick Jiménez: Excellent. But stop making that chili. We've got to have people eating at Chug's. So, as always, you can find Mike at @piginc on all the social media things. Go over there for all of his hot takes. Also, if you're in the area, go be a customer of Mike's things or other people's things.
Mike Beltrán: Everyone that's like local and a thing, you know. I don't know. There's like no, "You should do this."
Nick Jiménez: I would say this, because I don't think that it's fair to say you should do that because everybody's going to be strapped for cash pretty soon. But I will say don't let the idea that you can't get product be what stops you. Get in touch with the business if it's something that you want to do. Don't just make the assumption that you can't because chances are pretty good that there's a way to work with the people you want to work with.
Mike Beltrán: I say it all the time cause obviously I'm very opinionated, which is fine and I'm not always right, which is great. A closed mouth does not get fed. I think people need to speak up right now about what they need, what they think, how can people better help their business? How can you as a business owner get out and like be a part of the community and be there for the community more and just have a louder voice? Like some of the biggest things that changed my life forever were like when I stopped living in a bubble and just like thinking too much and I just spoke more about what I believed in. And I think you get more on the other end of that. You know, there's a lot of super passionate people in this community that are doing some amazing things and don't just think of like the names. Like, you know, there's 10 or 15 names out there that are big. There are smaller places too that need your support and that need things. You know, like I love going to Babe's and seeing them busy. You know, I wish people would have understood how important they were six months ago. It just doesn't take a fucking tragedy to understand how important they are. You know? I think that's like the gist of it all.
Nick Jiménez: I think, uh, sort of to, to your point about people not realizing certain things, and this is for a discussion for another episode, way into the future, but I think that for better or for worse, this isn't an optimistic or pessimistic statement, this is going to change, at least in Miami because Miami is not a place that was built for what people are trying to do right now. This is going to change the way neighborhoods look in this town. It's going to change the way people engage with their neighborhood, especially if some of the changes that restaurants are making become permanent. So just something, you know, food for thought. Something to chew on and whatever. So you can find us on all the social media things at @panconpodcast. Podcast episodes are available dademag.com/panconpodcast. Send us any feedback you might have @panconpodcast@dademag.com. You can support what we're doing on Patreon for as little as a buck a month at patreon.com/dademag. That gets you some exclusive content and also puts you in some random giveaways. We're going to be giving away a whole bunch of signed books by Norman Van Aken.
Mike Beltrán: Which we all now have time to read.
Nick Jiménez: Which we all now have time to read and cook along with and the whole thing. Um, and uh, yeah, that's it. Uh, wash your hands, uh, stay farther away from people than Mike is for me right now.
Mike Beltrán: We also, um, locally, some of the chefs locally and a local guy started an employee relief fund, which I think now is something out like $60,000 raised in a week, which is incredible. That's going to, you know, all the food and beverage employees that have been laid off in the last week or so. And basically they apply for a grant. They verify their employment and they get a check for $250. I mean, anything right now is like a great help and I think these guys have done an amazing job at really putting this thing together and, you know, making an impact, whether large or small or whatever. They really showed that together. They can, uh, accomplish a bunch. Um, so I think we should add a link to that somewhere.
Nick Jiménez: For sure. Yeah it'll be in the description on the episode page for this episode. So with that, we already gave you all the plugs. Last but not least, follow Peaty the dog at @peatythedog on Instagram Peaty the dog is hard at work, uh, orchestrating this whole podcast thing. That's it. Thanks. We'll catch you next time.