Talent Acquisition Tales from Bar Taco with Sheri Zippo

[00:00:00] Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Soosh and Joel

[00:00:07] Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking

[00:00:12] news, rash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcasts.

[00:00:20] Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It is Tony Gwynne's favorite podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese Podcast.

[00:00:31] I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman. Hello.

[00:00:33] Joined as always the doc to my Marty, Chad Soosh is in the house. Thank you.

[00:00:38] And we welcome Sherry Zippo, like the lighter. Zippo?

[00:00:43] To the show, Sherry is a talent acquisition specialist at two of my favorite words put together,

[00:00:50] a company called Bar Taco. Wow! Possibly the funnest place on earth.

[00:00:54] No, wait. Do they have the dot com? BarTaco.com? Yes. Oh my God. Oh my God.

[00:01:02] Before we get to you, what is this Bar Taco? I've never heard of it.

[00:01:06] Is it Two Great Tastes? It tastes great together. Of course they are.

[00:01:09] Is it all in California? Where is it located? Tell us about this Bar Taco.

[00:01:13] I have so many great things to say about Bar Taco. Bar Taco is upscale casual street food,

[00:01:19] scratch kitchen, scratch bar. We throw a party. We sell fun, not tacos. That's our tag. We are

[00:01:25] up and down the Eastern coast. We have 30 locations. It's going to be 32.

[00:01:30] When do you come to Indianapolis? That's all I care about right now.

[00:01:33] We're hearing a lot about that at this conference. Yes.

[00:01:35] We do have two in Colorado, so we are a little bit this way.

[00:01:38] You skipped us. You totally skipped.

[00:01:42] Totally fly over country. Fly over country. Yes.

[00:01:45] We don't deserve a bar or a taco. We only deserve single. So where was it founded?

[00:01:51] And when was it founded? 2010 in Porchester, New York. It was an old lobster shack on the

[00:01:55] water across to Connecticut and it just took off from there.

[00:02:00] Tacos, I think New England. She said it was a party, Joel.

[00:02:08] Like an interview with us. Has a taco in a bar.

[00:02:11] I mean, come on. He's slow. He's slow on the uptake.

[00:02:13] I'm getting a better sense of what it is now. Let's get a better sense of who you are.

[00:02:18] Most of our listeners, if not all of them have no clue who Sherry Zippo is. What makes Sherry tick?

[00:02:24] Oh gosh. Restaurants, hospitality. Long walks on the beach. I mean, come on.

[00:02:28] Oh yeah. Flip flops, walks on the beach and some good cocktails.

[00:02:33] Good call. No, I love the hospitality business restaurant industry. I've been in it for a

[00:02:37] really long time. I'm a new recruiter. So that's a fun fact.

[00:02:40] Please tell me Applebee's Outback Steakhouse or Chili's is in your past.

[00:02:45] PF Changs is in my past.

[00:02:47] Close enough.

[00:02:48] And Tavistock's in my past.

[00:02:49] She just raised the roof. Nobody's ever raised the roof with PF Changs.

[00:02:53] Well, I got two from our talk.

[00:02:54] That was good. There you go. There you go.

[00:02:57] I work for some great companies. But yeah, I was in operations for a really long time.

[00:03:02] Retired that hat and now I am in the recruiting side of things. So what's really great is I get to

[00:03:08] hire people for the roles that I've done. So I have a good sense of what that means.

[00:03:13] Create careers for people up and coming and add value to our company.

[00:03:17] So amazing.

[00:03:18] It's pretty fun.

[00:03:19] So what is the hardest thing for you as a recruiter at Bar Taco?

[00:03:24] I would assume that getting people to reply to anything that says Bar Taco would be easy,

[00:03:29] but I could be wrong. So help me out.

[00:03:31] No, we're really blessed. We have good applicant flow.

[00:03:34] We have a good backing behind us. I mean, people know our name.

[00:03:37] I mean, we're a beautiful restaurant. We're fun.

[00:03:39] When you go on the website and you look at a Bar Taco in the videos and all that,

[00:03:43] that's really what you feel and see when you walk in.

[00:03:45] Experience?

[00:03:45] Yeah, it translates.

[00:03:47] So hopefully, I mean, the goal is you talk to us on the phone and I just get

[00:03:50] great feedback about people like, when can I sign up?

[00:03:54] It's a buy-in super quick. So I think the hardest thing,

[00:04:00] I don't know, keep raising the bar, right?

[00:04:02] Daily with these technologies. Is that easy?

[00:04:04] We're a big tech side. I mean, we use the QR code at the table.

[00:04:07] Yeah, we don't have servers.

[00:04:08] Hello.

[00:04:09] Yeah, we're a whole nother.

[00:04:09] Hello, speaking my love language.

[00:04:12] Little QR code action.

[00:04:14] So the QR code adds the convenience for the guests and then we add the hospitality.

[00:04:17] What about for recruiting though? Is there a hiring QR code or

[00:04:22] have you started to use that yet?

[00:04:23] I mean, we have them that people can easily apply.

[00:04:25] They can easily get to our website.

[00:04:27] Yeah, yeah, we have virtual business cards.

[00:04:28] All that great stuff.

[00:04:29] That's just table stakes at this point.

[00:04:31] Get it?

[00:04:32] Sounds like there's just a flood of people that want to work there,

[00:04:34] which leads me to my question of, we talk so much about employer brand,

[00:04:38] giving a brand that's separate from our main brand.

[00:04:42] And Chad and I kind of go back and forth with,

[00:04:44] is it better to have just a homogenous brand that translates

[00:04:48] into people wanting to work there or to have a separate brand

[00:04:51] and then the separate employment thing?

[00:04:53] It sounds like you guys have really embraced the overall fun Bar Taco brand

[00:04:59] and that translates into applicant flow.

[00:05:02] Was that on purpose?

[00:05:03] Do you ever have discussions about a separate employer brand?

[00:05:07] Talk about that aspect of your recruiting.

[00:05:09] I mean, that's something that's definitely been a hot topic as of late.

[00:05:12] We're growing and learning.

[00:05:13] So in my opinion, what we did,

[00:05:15] because remember I'm only a year now, right?

[00:05:17] So we did five openings last year and that was when I just started.

[00:05:20] So from then until now, we're light speeds ahead.

[00:05:23] First of all, I think we get better every day.

[00:05:25] We keep adding value to the leadership teams that are collaborative

[00:05:28] and we all want the same things.

[00:05:29] We want the best guest experience,

[00:05:31] but we also want the best employee experience.

[00:05:33] I personally think that that's a combined thing

[00:05:35] and they really can't be separated.

[00:05:37] And I feel like that's the path we're going.

[00:05:38] It comes from a very genuine place.

[00:05:41] And you know, A players want to work with A players like, right?

[00:05:43] Like you don't have to be perfect at your craft, your skill,

[00:05:45] but you got to have drive and compassion and want it.

[00:05:48] You got to want it.

[00:05:49] And yeah, like all those things.

[00:05:51] So for me, I look for people like that to join us,

[00:05:54] to help better us and that we could teach you Bar Taco easy.

[00:05:57] And you get free tacos, which helps.

[00:05:59] I would like to be taught Bar Taco.

[00:06:01] That's all I gotta say.

[00:06:02] I'm sure it's as if you don't like tacos.

[00:06:04] I'm not sure a friend.

[00:06:05] So I may or may not wear that here in there.

[00:06:07] Dad joke alert.

[00:06:08] Not sure a friend.

[00:06:09] Dad joke alert.

[00:06:10] Get it.

[00:06:11] Okay.

[00:06:12] So back to the tech question.

[00:06:13] In all of this, because I mean we're talking about scale,

[00:06:17] because Bar Taco, it's sexy.

[00:06:18] Don't get me wrong.

[00:06:19] You're going to get a lot of applicants.

[00:06:21] How do you scale through those applicants with the technology?

[00:06:24] Do you, do you not?

[00:06:26] I mean,

[00:06:26] You manage the flow.

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:27] How do you do it?

[00:06:28] Oh, I think that's something that, I mean,

[00:06:29] this is a great example of what we're learning, right?

[00:06:31] Yeah.

[00:06:32] Mid last year, I jumped on a few webinars with different tech companies

[00:06:36] to see if there were things that we aren't using,

[00:06:38] that we could use that would make our process better, easier,

[00:06:42] more attractive, all those things.

[00:06:43] And so we saw a couple here as well.

[00:06:45] So I think when we go back.

[00:06:46] Name names.

[00:06:47] Who did you see that you liked?

[00:06:49] We liked to recruit bot.

[00:06:50] Okay.

[00:06:50] Okay.

[00:06:51] I think that that's, that could be something that could work for us.

[00:06:53] We've been hearing their name a lot around here.

[00:06:55] We have, we have.

[00:06:56] You know, we're different too.

[00:06:57] We're restaurants hospitality versus looking for nurses.

[00:06:59] It's not even.

[00:07:00] Yeah.

[00:07:01] So when you talk about a certain recruiting platform,

[00:07:03] I don't want to mention total names, but it may not hit the target audience

[00:07:08] that we're looking for for our mass hiring, right?

[00:07:10] What does work for you if not the targeted solution?

[00:07:13] Indeed is a really big hub for us.

[00:07:17] Especially when we're doing new restaurant openings and you're talking about hourly employees.

[00:07:20] I mean, we just did an event in Charlotte to open our Burkdale location,

[00:07:25] Jamie and I, and we had over 300 interviews that we interviewed and over 20% return rate on that

[00:07:31] for two days of hire, like an event.

[00:07:33] So we get a lot from that.

[00:07:35] But salary is when you're cultivating who you want on your team

[00:07:40] and you're building with what's already there and you're poaching from

[00:07:43] you know what I mean?

[00:07:45] Like the places that you respect, you respect those places and you're like,

[00:07:48] well, I want you to work for us.

[00:07:50] You know the training, you know, the environment,

[00:07:52] you know if it's going to actually come out, if they're parallel.

[00:07:54] Right.

[00:07:55] Yeah.

[00:07:55] I feel like she's saying the Taco Bell training system doesn't sink with the bar taco.

[00:08:01] Sorry, maybe Dell Taco, maybe Chipotle.

[00:08:04] But no Taco Bell.

[00:08:05] To be honest, like Chipotle or Chick-fil-A or things like that, Starbucks,

[00:08:09] we've had some really good success stories with managers, which we call service leaders in our

[00:08:14] industry coming in as a start because they want to jump over to full service.

[00:08:19] And we're willing to teach them and they have all those things we talked about,

[00:08:22] the non-negotiables that we can't teach.

[00:08:24] So it's amazing.

[00:08:25] So my wife, her background is service, restaurant, general manager, right?

[00:08:31] The logistics, the management, I mean everything that you have to do going through

[00:08:36] that process as a manager or general manager at an organization like Bar Taco,

[00:08:41] it's a great launch pad for not just staying in the industry but getting into other leadership

[00:08:46] positions because there's a lot of leadership that's taught.

[00:08:49] There's a lot of care and give a shit about your employees because if you don't, guess what?

[00:08:54] They don't show up the next day.

[00:08:55] It's much different than most other industries.

[00:08:59] Talk a little bit about that.

[00:09:00] I mean because though I feel like a lot of those individuals get looked down upon

[00:09:05] and they have skill sets that are far above many even corporates.

[00:09:09] Which people?

[00:09:09] Like the general managers, the managers of locations who actually have to deal with the people,

[00:09:15] not just customers but also obviously employees.

[00:09:17] Yeah well there are boots on the ground, right?

[00:09:20] We are very like we know that.

[00:09:22] You know the RSC, the restaurant support center,

[00:09:24] some of the best collaborative group of people I've worked with in the industry

[00:09:27] as far as the support center, we know that.

[00:09:29] All of us know that.

[00:09:30] We work for them and we are at their disposal so we're there to support.

[00:09:34] So whether that's being available to pick up a phone or do something for them that they need

[00:09:38] or it's leadership and development or soft skills that we want to help our leaders grow.

[00:09:43] I think everybody at Bar Taco in that position is committed to doing that for all of our teams

[00:09:50] which is pretty awesome.

[00:09:51] So that's what keeps me going and makes me want to just stay and hit another year

[00:09:55] and another year because I believe in it.

[00:09:56] So you see a career path.

[00:09:58] I mean that's why I joined.

[00:09:59] I would never have.

[00:10:00] Yeah okay 100%.

[00:10:02] We talk a lot on the show about minimum wage.

[00:10:05] As you are aware it hasn't increased in many years over a decade

[00:10:10] and food service is struggling with paying servers and staff.

[00:10:15] Where is Bar Taco's sort of strategy around salary and keeping people?

[00:10:20] It sounds like it's a great environment, there's training for retention

[00:10:23] but talk about the salary piece of keeping people on the job.

[00:10:26] As far as the salary positions that we have, we are very competitive and the people,

[00:10:31] the powers above are very clear in stating where we want to fall into with the percentile of

[00:10:37] a like with like.

[00:10:38] So I think we're on the cutting edge with that.

[00:10:40] Like I think we're in a good place.

[00:10:42] As far as the hourly go that's the great thing about Bar Taco.

[00:10:46] The service model allows us so we don't like I said we don't have servers,

[00:10:50] we don't have hosts.

[00:10:51] We have a group of support team that we call Dragonflies because that's our logo.

[00:10:55] I know that's cool.

[00:10:56] And our management team and your bartenders, those are your front of the house staff

[00:11:00] and then you have your typical culinary staff.

[00:11:02] And because it's a the QR code all those gratuities that are being left

[00:11:08] are split amongst the team that worked.

[00:11:10] So it creates a higher wage.

[00:11:12] Are people tipping through QR code?

[00:11:13] Yeah.

[00:11:14] Talk about that.

[00:11:15] Well how long was the decision to do that?

[00:11:18] What kind of engagement do you have?

[00:11:20] I don't know how much I could actually talk on it since I'm not that new

[00:11:23] but like what do you mean to use the QR code?

[00:11:24] Why that's innovative?

[00:11:25] I mean we don't hear a lot of food service talking about tipping through QR code.

[00:11:29] Like is it a service?

[00:11:31] Is it a vendor?

[00:11:32] Yeah well we use a company called One Dine that's who we partner with and so you

[00:11:35] Okay makes sense.

[00:11:36] They pay the bill and tip.

[00:11:38] Okay it's not exclusively tipping, it's paying the bill.

[00:11:41] Okay so I got excited for no reason.

[00:11:43] I was like oh.

[00:11:44] As usual.

[00:11:45] Anyway but you know these line cooks and prep cooks and team members

[00:11:48] you know are making you know sometimes an average of $20 an hour.

[00:11:52] You know and it that's amazing and we have a weekly pay and everybody's paid fairly

[00:11:56] and equally and it's a team environment.

[00:11:58] If you're not a team then it's not if you know you're not willing to do that

[00:12:01] then it's not an environment for you and that's fine

[00:12:03] and we're going to find the people that want to do that because the more money

[00:12:06] we make the more money they make.

[00:12:08] So automation is another topic that's hot and we hear about more restaurants

[00:12:12] looking to automate certainly in my experience.

[00:12:14] Little robots you're talking about?

[00:12:16] Oh I don't know if I can answer that.

[00:12:18] Kiosk replacing cashier workers.

[00:12:22] Just a little TA girl.

[00:12:24] Flipy replacing just a little TA girl.

[00:12:27] She doesn't make the robotic.

[00:12:29] No thoughts on automation?

[00:12:32] I don't know but I don't think so we're such a human interact.

[00:12:35] Was it is it a branding question?

[00:12:36] So for example we had In-N-Out last night and I could never imagine

[00:12:41] the culture of In-N-Out being automated whereas other restaurants I could imagine that.

[00:12:47] Where do you think your brand is in terms of automation?

[00:12:50] Do you think it'll be something you embrace or people want the personal touch at the restaurant?

[00:12:56] Like you asked me if I think we're gonna get rid of people?

[00:12:58] I don't think so.

[00:12:59] I mean who would cook that?

[00:13:00] There it is.

[00:13:00] Who would cook that?

[00:13:01] I mean again I don't want to be held accountable for that but I don't think so.

[00:13:04] I don't know who's gonna cook that an easy scratch.

[00:13:06] I don't think anybody's gonna hold you accountable.

[00:13:07] Scratch food you know.

[00:13:08] Yes.

[00:13:09] She's like when I sat down I was told that they would just talk about bars and tacos.

[00:13:14] Which is not getting rid of all our employees.

[00:13:16] Which is my wheelhouse.

[00:13:18] Yeah.

[00:13:18] But what I do think is that we are innovative company and we are cutting edge and we are

[00:13:22] leaning on technology so I think we're gonna keep upping the bar.

[00:13:26] Right.

[00:13:26] But combining it with the human is if I had a guess.

[00:13:29] So beyond bar taco just basic opinion we've heard automation, AI, blah blah blah it's

[00:13:37] all over the place right?

[00:13:38] Do you think that is just like overrated or do you think it's literally truth that

[00:13:43] some companies are they're gonna look at trying to cut heads using automation and AI?

[00:13:49] And see that's what's funny like we don't use the QR code for that.

[00:13:51] Like one might think that off the cuff they might go oh they don't have service because

[00:13:55] they don't want to pay that.

[00:13:55] That's not actually why we do it at all.

[00:13:57] It actually helps our employees.

[00:14:00] But I think that yes for some concepts I think that that's the way it has to go

[00:14:04] but not for all.

[00:14:05] Yeah.

[00:14:05] I think it's gonna vary.

[00:14:06] I think it can't be standardized.

[00:14:08] Yeah.

[00:14:09] Everyone that is Sherry Zippo.

[00:14:12] Zippo.

[00:14:12] From Bar Taco.

[00:14:14] Sherry for those that are listening who want to connect with you or get on that list for

[00:14:18] when Bar Taco is coming to town.

[00:14:20] Yes.

[00:14:20] Where would you send them?

[00:14:21] Indianapolis.

[00:14:22] You can go to my LinkedIn profile or should I give an email address?

[00:14:25] Whatever you want.

[00:14:27] You do you Sherry.

[00:14:28] With a name like Zippo just let it let it ride.

[00:14:31] Or ask Zippo at bartaco.com.

[00:14:33] QR codes, bars, tacos, P.F. Changs.

[00:14:37] I love it.

[00:14:38] Speaking of my love language, Shad another one is in the can.

[00:14:42] We out.

[00:14:43] Thank you for listening to what's it called?

[00:14:46] A podcast.

[00:14:47] The chat.

[00:14:48] The cheese.

[00:14:49] Brilliant.

[00:14:50] They talk about recruiting.

[00:14:52] They talk about technology.

[00:14:54] But most of all they talk about nothing.

[00:14:57] Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know and yet you're listening.

[00:15:01] It's incredible.

[00:15:02] And not one word about cheese.

[00:15:05] Not one cheddar.

[00:15:07] Blue.

[00:15:08] Nacho.

[00:15:09] Pepper Jack.

[00:15:10] Swiss.

[00:15:11] So many cheeses and not one word.

[00:15:14] So weird.

[00:15:16] Anywho be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen

[00:15:23] to your podcasts.

[00:15:25] That way you won't miss an episode.

[00:15:27] And while you're at it visit www.chadcheese.com.

[00:15:33] Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese.

[00:15:38] So weird.

[00:15:39] We out.