Ashish Tulsian:

Hi, welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is Craig Dunaway. Craig is the COO at Penn Station Subs, a successful franchise restaurant brand.This conversation was interesting at many levels, the first one being, you know, not many business leaders are number driven and, you know, people in the business while building it, they always struggle with that aspect. And Craig came from public accounting background, somebody who loved numbers, somebody who, you know, looked at business as numbers. But at the same time, what I discovered in the chat is, Craig is also somebody who loves people. And it’s a rare combination of someone who can, who is at the center of building a brand in hospitality, who loves people and numbers, both at the same time. That speaks volumes of, about how he has shaped Penn Station Subs over years. This is a great conversation, a lot of nuggets to catch. Enjoy. Welcome to Restrocast. Hey, Craig, welcome to Restrocast.

Craig Dunaway:

Thank you. Nice to be here.

Ashish Tulsian:

We’ll dive directly into, you know, what you do on a day to day basis. I always wonder, you know, you are the COO for Penn Station Subs. And what is it that you do every day?  What does your day look like?

Craig Dunaway:

You know, my position has really transitioned a lot over the last couple of years. I used to say I was in the weeds a lot on a day to day basis. I think to be a, you know, to be a good leader, you need to be a little bit of both. You need to see 10,000 feet, 20,000 feet, 30,000 feet. But you also need to understand the details. You and I were talking about on an introductory call how, with the restaurant business, it’s a pennies business. And so now I…

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s very counterintuitive, right? Because outside in the world, people believe that it’s probably the most, the largest, highest margin money making business, no?

Craig Dunaway:

Oh, it’s lost in the details. You know, if someone gets, you know, like in our business, we serve fresh cut fries and a small fries, nine ounces. And if a customer comes in and orders a small and they get 18 ounces, you’re not going to make it up by giving the next customer no fries. So that’s where you, when you talk about the margins and the pennies, that’s where it really comes into play. But the day to day, I’m really not in the weeds anymore. I work very closely with the department heads. We have a president who does a great job running the company. He’s very, even though my title’s chief operating officer, he really oversees the operations at Penn Station. My operations were the operations of the company. So I have meetings almost every day with department heads and stay in very close contact. I negotiate all of our contracts with our suppliers. And because it’s a pennies business, and because we’re selling return on investment, I’m working very closely with, you know, with the suppliers to make sure we can get the franchisees a great product at a great price. And then finally talking to the franchisees. I mean, they’re our customer, you know, that’s, they’re the lifeblood of our business. So I want to understand what we do well, what we do poorly. We’re very candid in our communication with them. I always tell them that you may not like what you hear from us, but you’re going to get truth and honesty. So it’s, it’s communication. This, this is a communication business. In addition to being a pennies business, it’s, it’s communication, making sure you’ve got great relationships with suppliers, with franchisees, and your team, you know, building a great culture.

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s fascinating, you know, that you said, franchisees, you know, who are your customers at Penn Station. And a lot is about communication. It’s been 24 years since you’re, you know, doing this. What is it that is left on a day-to-day basis that, that hasn’t been done? What is it that, that is new that you need to communicate every day?

Craig Dunaway:

You know, I’m not, I’m not the founder of the brand. Jeff Osterfeld’s our founder and did a, did a phenomenal job creating this, this concept. And we were, we feel like we’ve got a lot of unfinished business. We take a look at, you know, brands that started at the same time as we did, and they’ve grown a lot faster than, than we did. And it was somewhat by design. We were always building one at a time and make sure that for the franchisees with, you know, we have 320 locations and only one of them’s company owned. So, you know, it’s, it’s making sure that that franchisee’s profitability is there. And the business, look, you know, you’re doing what you do now, and you see how the business has changed so much, even in the last three to five years with COVID and with third-party delivery and AI. And so it’s, it’s a big challenge. It’s, it’s more challenging than it was 10 years ago. But we’ve got some unfinished business. We’re, you know, in 15 states. We feel like that we have a great product and we want to double in size over the next, you know, six to seven years. And, you know, by attracting great franchisees, attracting people who believe in the product, believe in the culture, believe in the management team. So a lot of unfinished business for Penn Station.

Ashish Tulsian:

Now I’m going to dive into each of that, you know, but before, before we go in the details, I have a theory that nobody gets into the food business or being a restauranteur on the, on the, on the dark side of the restaurant industry by choice. People generally fall into it and they fall into it because, you know, I call it the honey trap. You know, my own journey was like that, where I, you know, one fine day just felt that, oh, restaurant is a cool business. Looks very easy. Somebody else is making the food. Somebody else is consuming. Owners are never to be found at the restaurants. You know, looks like a good idea. And I just fell into it. And, you know, 11 years or 12 years out, I’m selling technology to the restaurants. That is also because I realized that probably I’m not cut out to be a restauranteur. It is probably one of the toughest businesses I have experienced. And I’ve experienced a couple of businesses, you know, in my own way. What’s your story? I don’t believe Craig just walked into it, you know, by the plan.

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, I’m not sure that I fell into it as much, jumped into it. So, my background is public accounting. I was a partner at a firm in Louisville, Kentucky. Practiced public accounting for 15 years. Loved it. Loved numbers. Loved the relationship of numbers. And, you know, always loved the relationship between the balance sheet and an income statement. And in college, a gentleman and I used to study together. And, you know, you’re 20 years old and you have nothing in your pocket, but you got a lot of dreams in your head. And we said, when we graduate from college, let’s buy some real estate. I was always fascinated with real estate and don’t really know why. I just love the thought of owning an asset and leasing it out to somebody. And we both went our separate ways when we graduated. He actually came back to our accounting firm about three years later as our controller. And so, we rekindled the let’s buy some real estate discussion. And I think it was a little serendipity. A buddy of ours who we went to college with called and said, hey, I’m thinking about becoming a Papa John’s franchisee. He was a banker. And my friend put some projections together and he said, remember that idea about real estate? We should become restaurant guys. So, we met with Papa John’s. This is for context. It’s the mid-80s. There were only about 55 Papa John’s at the time. And my buddy, he happened to play high school baseball with John Schnatter, who was the founder of Papa John’s. So, we met with Dan Holland, who may come back into this story later, who was the president and love what Papa John’s had to say. I love the focus on the quality of the product on the franchisees. And so, we scrapped the idea of real estate and said, we’re going to become Papa John’s franchisees. And they were at a point where they were looking for young, aggressive people. I mean, we were only 24, 25 years old at the time and really didn’t have any money. But we met with a banker who said, you know what, I’ll loan you the money to do this and it’s probably going to fail. But if it does, I know you’re going to pay me back. And I said, well, we can’t afford it to fail, but you’re right. If it does, I’ll pay you back. And over the course of 11 years or 10 years, we opened 11 Papa John’s, made money in spite of ourselves. But they were looking for young, aggressive people who just couldn’t take no for an answer.

Ashish Tulsian:

And this was not like, you were not buying the real estate on which you were opening Papa John’s?

Craig Dunaway:

No, we were just going out and looking for space to lease. You know, you were looking back then what you’re looking for now, which is an in-cap space with a pickup window. So that’s what we started doing. And I stayed in public accounting full time. You know, our restaurants were in Cincinnati, Ohio. So I was in Cincinnati pretty much every weekend, you know, worked all week in the world of public accounting, grinding, and then we drive to Cincinnati and meet with our operating partner. And really, that’s how I got to know kind of what you said, the dark side and the seedy side of the restaurant business.

Ashish Tulsian:

Interesting. So just to get the relationship right, these 11 franchises were owned by you guys?

Craig Dunaway:

That’s right. We had three partners. Two of us were in Cincinnati all of the time. One took a more passive role in the business, but we were up every weekend. I remember being at a festival in Cincinnati, having on a suit, passing out pizzas in 85 degree weather on a sunny July 4th afternoon.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow. All right. And you know, while you said that this was a 10-year journey, you know, over 10 years, you opened 11 Papa John’s. So, you know, and then Penn Station happened?

Craig Dunaway:

So in our Saturday journeys, we happened to stumble upon Penn Station one day. Just visited one of the at the time, maybe only 25 or 30 Penn Stations.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, they started in Cincinnati.

Craig Dunaway:

Started in Cincinnati. Started at the same time Papa John’s, started in 1985. So this is around 1997. And we went in and tried the food. Had never heard of it. You know, I mean, there were none really outside of Cincinnati. Cincinnati, Dayton, and Indianapolis were the only markets at the time and tried the food and thought it was phenomenal. Said, oh my gosh, this is great. So, you know, wanted to learn a little bit more about it. So we called the business, spoke to the founder, and, you know, just had a casual meeting about, you know, would this concept do well in Louisville, Kentucky? So that’s how our journey really kind of started going from a Papa John’s journey to a Penn Station journey.

Ashish Tulsian:

All right. So you met them to take a Penn Station franchisee?

Craig Dunaway:

So talked to them about bringing Penn Station to Louisville. And it was really, for me, there were really, I think, three things that happened in this time frame. Jeff, our founder, asked me if I would serve on our franchisee advisory council once we became Penn Station franchisees. But we had a time where we operated both concepts. But, you know, you’re operating Papa John’s in Cincinnati. You’re operating Penn Stations in Louisville. And I’m in public accounting full time. And it wasn’t like what you see today where, you know, people own multiple brands. You got on a brand and you stayed with it. And so Jeff really wanted us to sell our Papa John’s. And what happened over the course of about six months was my partner, Charlie, told me, said, I’m tired of traveling back and forth to Cincinnati, Ohio, all the time. And frankly, I wasn’t smart enough to say move. Never dawned on me. We were the largest franchisee at the time of Papa John’s in Cincinnati. And the second largest one approached us and said, you know, we would be interested in, you know, we’d be interested in buying your restaurants. And I’m like, I don’t know that we’re interested. But he made us an offer. And I decided we were a little more interested than I thought. And then that having tasted the product. So we just decided it was the right time. And Charlie and I were starting to grow a little bit apart. You know, we had grown to five Penn Station restaurants at the time. And, you know, it was time for me to make an acquisition of his interest. So, you know, you kind of fast forward into that 97, 98 timeframe. It really happened pretty quickly. You know, I look back on it and think, man, there were a lot of steps in place, but it seemed like it flew by at the time. You’re making a lot of quick decisions. You know, you got hurt feelings and hurt friends along the way, but everything turned out great.

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, one thing that’s, you know, that’s another observation that I have is that, you know, restaurant business somehow occurs to a lot of people as a side business to start with, given the fact that you were like for 10 years in public accounting and then operating Papa John’s, you of course had operating partner, but then you were part-time and your energies were going there. And then Penn Station added as a third, you know, part-time project. What is it that, you know, while running Papa John’s, given that you were not an operating partner, and I’m making an assumption here, the fact that you’re not operating, you know, on a day-to-day basis, what is it that, you know, you realized after jumping into Penn Station full-time, which you did not, you know, probably see in Papa John’s when you were?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, you have to have a great operating partner. You know, we’ve talked about this a little bit today. I mean, it is not a passive business. I mean, at all. You have to be close to the counter, you have to be close to your suppliers, and you have to be close to the customer, and you have to be close to your employees. And so what I learned really early on in the business, I’d never worked in a restaurant a day in my life. I mean, I went from never working in a restaurant to becoming an owner of 11 restaurants. And I was always focused on the financial side because I knew the result of it was going to be what the P&L looked like. But the way that I tried to achieve that was through having great relationships with my operating partner and great relationships with the managers, you know, making sure that they knew we were trying to take care of them. And one thing that attracted me to Penn Station was a philosophy that I had is if you make people around you better, then ultimately you can reap the rewards of that. It was never a me first attitude. It was to go in and try to make everybody else better and then be the benefactor of that in the long run. So I learned that even more carried over to the, you know, as I became a Papa John, or excuse me, a Penn Station franchisee. And we’ve got a philosophy that the franchisee has to have a managing owner. They have to have somebody close to the counter. They have to have equity. And when you have a vested interest in like that, you’re going to treat it like your own. So we don’t have a bonus of the day or the bonus of the month. I mean, we want them to be really, really vested in the ownership of their business. So I learned it as a partner in public accounting. I learned it as a Papa John’s franchise. Frankly, I learned it up cutting grass because I was my own partner. And so each journey along the way really instilled that ownership mentality in me. It wasn’t something I had to learn because I lived it for about 15 or 20 years.

Ashish Tulsian:

So what was that point when you decided to leave public accounting? You, of course, sold your, you know, Papa John’s stake. When did you decide to jump in?

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, that was a, that was a tough, tough decision for me. I love, I said this earlier, I love public accounting. I was the youngest partner in the firm. And so good, bad or indifferent, I was kind of the go-to guy for the staff below, you know, below partner. Most of the other partners were probably 10 years older than I was. So I had a lot of people coming to me in the firm. We were a pretty good sized firm. We were one of the largest regional firms in Louisville. And I would have younger staff come to me and say, do you think I have partner material? And I’ll tell you what, when somebody’s asking, they have partner material and you know, they don’t. It’s, it’s hard to have that conversation because you want to be candid with them. But you have to burst their bubble too. And I had that conversation several times along the way. And so Jeff, our founder at Penn Station asked me in February of 99, he said, you know, you’ve been on the franchisee advisory council. I’ve called you for the last year, just asking questions. I’m building a golf course. I would love for you to move to Cincinnati from Louisville and run the company. And, you know, I talked about that, that advice I was given crew or team members along the way in the world of public accounting. And I thought if I don’t take this opportunity, I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world. I’ve been given career advice, you know, not unsolicited. Anybody would ask me, I’d give them my opinion on it. And I thought if I don’t give myself the same advice, you know, you can’t still second, if you don’t get a lead on first type thing that I was a hypocrite. So I decided to, you know, to take the chance. And I mentioned earlier meeting with Dan Holland at Papa John’s. I called Dan about it, really respected him in the years that I worked with him was a, was a Papa John’s franchisee. And he said, Craig, you’re, you’re good with people. You care. You’ll do great at this. You understand numbers. And I thought, you know what, I’m going to try and see what happens. So I really didn’t want to be 50 years old and still build my time out on an hourly basis and have white hair. So I didn’t build my time out on an hourly basis, but I did get the white hair.

Ashish Tulsian:

And then you took the dive head first.

Craig Dunaway:

So then I, then I, then I dove in and you know, when I came in, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I asked Jeff if I could meet with all of the employees before I came in and I told him, I said, guys, I think this is a really special brand. There were 60, you know, 60 at the time. I see a lot of similarities between between Papa John’s and Penn station. The biggest difference was Jeff just wanted all, every one of them to be successful. And John Schnatter said by the year 2000, they said this in 1985 by the year 2000, we want to have 2000 units. And you know, when you’re sitting in a room and hearing the founder say that, and there’s about 60 of them, you’re like, wow. So I met with the team at Penn station and said, I think it’s a special concept, but I don’t, I don’t have to do this. I don’t want to come here if you guys don’t want me here. You know, I’d like to lead the team. And Jeff told me really that that had a big impact. You know, I went in, I didn’t go into it with arrogance. I just wanted to see what we could do.

Ashish Tulsian:

So at the time, when you, when you dived in like a full-time role, uh, you had five pensions and subsidies?

Craig Dunaway:

No, by that time I had, uh, I think I had about 11. No, I’m sorry. No, that’s right. I had five. I continued to build along the way. So I had five and I started at Penn station in, uh, in August of 99 and, uh, left public accounting in June. I remember standing up in front of everybody, telling them I was late. It was very difficult to do that. And then I said earlier, Charlie and I were starting to, we were going our separate ways. You know, you’re, you’ve gotten more mature in business. You’ve been, you know, you’ve been together partners for almost, I don’t know, 14 years. And he had his way of doing business and I had my way of doing business and it was starting to, you know, go apart. So I started at Penn station and then three months later, I bought Charlie out and had to go find another operating partner.

Ashish Tulsian:

So your role at Penn station full-time, but you continue to be a franchisee.

Craig Dunaway:

I did. That’s right. And I think that it helped, uh, it helped my relationship with Penn station franchisees. I think it gave me street credibility. When I first came in, uh, I was one of the largest franchisees. There were only a couple who had more locations. So I knew when I was at Penn station, the decisions I made, not only did it impact franchisees, but it also impacted me. So I think the franchise base always knew the decisions I was making, had their interest at heart and the brand’s interest at heart.

Ashish Tulsian:

But wasn’t there a conflict of interest as well?

Craig Dunaway:

I don’t think so. I don’t think so because I never, I would, you know, when, when you’re a franchise, I’m from a, from a brand perspective. Yeah. Oh, uh, no, I don’t think so because I think it allowed me to see things from their point of view. You know, I remember a franchisee early on calling, he had probably half the restaurants that I did and we were getting, we have a fresh baked or fresh cut fry. And, uh, we were getting some poor quality potatoes and he called me and said, you don’t understand what this is doing to my business. And I said, Mike, I own twice the number of restaurants that you own. I know exactly what it’s doing to our business because it’s impacted every franchise. He’s calling me and it’s impacted my restaurants down in Louisville. So I think it gave me a unique perspective being, you know, being on both sides of the coin.

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you continue to own?

Craig Dunaway:

No, no, actually I sold, uh, had 15 restaurants. Uh, I sold them in 2014. Uh, and the reason I sold was because I felt like we had so much upside at Penn station. I wanted to make sure we had gotten large enough that I wanted to make sure that the franchisees knew that I was fully committed to the brand and wasn’t committed to, to grow in the Louisville market.

Ashish Tulsian:

So yeah, all 14 were in Louisville.

Craig Dunaway:

Yes. Yes.

Ashish Tulsian:

You pretty much owned the Louisville. I did.

Craig Dunaway:

That’s right. There was a franchisee in Southern Indiana, just across the river, but I pretty much owned the Southern, the Louisville market.

Ashish Tulsian:

And in that journey, you know, I understand that you had the credibility with franchisees, but then I’m sure franchising business is a difficult business you’re dealing with. You know, I always, you know, see this. I feel that it’s really fascinating to see franchisee business because you’re not recruiting people who want to get employed. You’re recruiting entrepreneurs. You’re recruiting people who are ready to bust their ass for the next 24 hours, I mean, 24 hours a day. And you want them to listen to them. So it’s kind of an antithesis of exactly what, you know, entrepreneurs are, you know, made off and franchisors are supposed to, you know, be partners or, or make a thousand or 300 or, you know, a hundred entrepreneurs listen to them. Yeah, it is difficult business.

Craig Dunaway:

So it is, I think it’s staged entrepreneurialism. You know, what you want is about, you don’t want someone who is so rogue as an entrepreneur that they’re always creating, you know, because as you want ideas from franchisees, but at the same time as the brand, you’re the creator and, and, you know, Jeff’s the one who gave birth to that brand. So you need someone who is very system compliant, organized, diligent, you know, you’re putting an ops manual together. And that doesn’t mean don’t hear me say we don’t listen to our franchise community because we very much do, but someone has to lead the brand and leading of the brand is the franchisor. So you need someone who’s compliant with the ops manual, compliant with the systems and procedures, but at the same time, they’re going to run their business like they own it. You know, you’re buying a model or you’re leasing a model for a 20 year period. And so you want someone who has that balance.

Ashish Tulsian:

But I think, I mean, you can’t afford to have creators taking your brand, right? Because for good or bad, for good or bad, right? These guys are going to have ideas, right? They may want to steer your brand for good, I mean, for in their own way, right? But then it may or may not really always resonate, right? So where do you draw that line where you have to shun somebody’s creativity and shun maybe a hard word, right? But then, you know, you have to really ask somebody to, hey, you know, for your good and our good, you have to really stop thinking and let’s just make sure that we have repeatable concept that’s going on.

Craig Dunaway:

That’s a really good question. I think it’s making sure they understand that when you’re making decisions today, you’re making decisions on behalf of 320 locations and you’re not making decisions off of five or six locations that you may own. And I think you have to set up culture to get away with that. You know, you can’t be the party of no. And so you have to set up a culture that has an open line of communication with franchisees. So we have a franchisee advisory council and we encourage franchisees to go to their, to go to the leaders on that franchisee advisory council, which they’re in geographical areas throughout the country. And if you have a suggestion, we want you to take that to, you know, to the FAC. And then we meet four times a year and, you know, we evaluate and we discuss those ideas. And, and, you know, it’s a, it’s, it’s a, it’s an advisory board. You know, we want you to bring us ideas. You’re closer to the field than we are on a day-to-day basis. So it’s, you have to keep that open line of communication. If you tell everybody know about everything, then it’s just going to fall on deaf ears. And then you create conflict with the system. So I think it’s how you go about on a daily basis for 365 days, creating that culture. You can’t set up an FAC and never listen to anybody and say, oh, just call the FAC. It’s, the FAC is a by-product of everything else that you’re doing on a daily basis.

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s still difficult, right? One day, you know, once I was talking to a man who was getting into franchising and he, he told me something, he said, Ashish, you know, it was a candid conversation over drinks. And, you know, after a lot of idealistic conversations, he said, you know what, I love, you know, for people to have ideas. Ashish, I do ask them for their advice. The problem is then that they give me advice and I have to listen to it. So I, while I was laughing my lungs out, I was also feeling the pain. Craig, as the people’s person, you know, it’s quite evident, right, from your public accounting to, you know, your, your franchising, you know, being a franchisee, but what’s the bad side? What’s, what’s the, what were the dark patches while dealing with franchisees? Because I’m sure that, you know, through this way, you might have had, you know, fair share of people who were difficult, you know, to deal with. What, what does that difficulty look like from your lens?

Craig Dunaway:

You know, on a, on a smaller scale level, what it looks like is when you see, you know, we have an operating system, we’re, we’re leasing or selling that operating system to someone for 20 years, and then they’re operating against that standard. And what’s difficult to see is when you, you witness them not following policy and procedure, you know what they’re doing wrong. You know, they haven’t created a great culture within their organization, but you can’t necessarily go in and fix it because it’s their business to run like we spoke about a few minutes ago. I mean, we can give them, we do performance evaluations in restaurants between eight and 10 times a year, and we will leave you a very, very detailed set of notes and you can decide.

Ashish Tulsian:

You mean, you mean on-site audits or is it just the numbers?

Craig Dunaway:

Yes. And it’s a thousand point scoring system and it is, it is a full day and it can be anywhere between five and 12 pages of notes. And it’s really hard to see when you leave someone those notes and they don’t affect a change in their own business. So that’s on the small side. I think on the bigger side is that, you know, you have to counsel people out of the system and you know, not every restaurant is going to succeed. And I remember meeting with a franchisee really, really early on whose restaurant was failing and they ultimately lost. And I think that an advantage for us, we treat your money like it’s ours. We can’t run your business. But when you see somebody fail, it hurts. And so that’s a personal pain. You know, it’s tough when you see that.

Ashish Tulsian:

But why is that failure? I mean, there are so many variables that are already controlled, right? So why does a franchisee or why does a restaurant business under your operating system can still fail? What are the…

Craig Dunaway:

It’s a myriad of reasons. You know, we have analytics behind sites, but you know, traffic patterns can change or demographics can change. So it could be the site. You know, it could be the managing partner. You know, we do personality profiles of managing partners and on paper, they can look like they’re going to be phenomenal. And then something happens in their personal life and the business just start going south and it fails.

Ashish Tulsian:

Have you seen such a stock, you know, effect that like somebody somebody, you know, just changed so much that it…

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, we’ve seen that. I mean, people have problems in their lives, right? And sometimes you run head on into the battle and you pour your life into your business. And sometimes you run away from it. And we saw that a little bit during COVID. You know, we had probably 75 franchisees at the time. And I think 70 of them did a phenomenal job of, you know, our speech is…

Craig Dunaway:

I’m going to fight this till the end, whatever happens. I mean, in March of 2020, you didn’t know. And we had four or five who just, you know, it was tough for them. It was tough for them because of health issues or whatever reason. And, and, you know, that’s not the time to kick somebody. That’s the time to put your arm around them and say, look, we’ll help you get out of this. So you’ve got to balance all of those things, but it’s not unlike children. You can see the decisions that they’re making and you know, whatever decision they’re making is a poor decision. You can’t make it for them there. It’s their decision and they’re going to learn. So I think most often, you know, when, when a franchisee fails, if they’re not following the operational system, if they’re not taking care of the guest, if they’re not creating that culture, or if, if they just have a bad location, you know, if one of those variables you can overcome, you can’t overcome all four of them.

Ashish Tulsian:

See, location, I understand. I mean, that’s a, that’s just unfortunate, right? If the demographic change or something, you know, maybe just pick the wrong, wrong location. Right. But as an operating partner, and I’m, I’m just, you know, trying to go a little deeper than this. You also said that if they’re not maintaining a good culture, right. And in your thousand point auditing system, how do you audit that culture? And what do you mean by, you know, a good culture?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, I think, you know, seek first to understand them, then be understood. And I think it’s understanding your team, you know, what is it that motivates each of your key players? And at the restaurant level, I mean, you know, you’ve got some 18 year olds in the restaurant, it’s going to wind up being their full-time job, and they want to be a manager one day. And you’ve got somebody maybe going to vocational school, or, you know, you got another one whose dad told him he had to get a job, or some maybe going off to college. And I think you have to understand what’s motivating that individual. And I think when you care about that person, and you understand that person, and you’re asking them how they’re doing, they’re going to give back to you. You know, if you just come in and scream and say, the dishes are dirty, what have you been doing? What have you been doing the last hour? What kind of culture does that create? And I think, you know, where sometimes I think it’s overlooked. I mean, look at the brands you and I know that have failed, because they didn’t reinvest in their business over time. And who wants to go work in an environment where the knives are dull, nothing’s been repaired, the toilet doesn’t flush. I mean, you have to create a great culture with the physical plant, with how you take care of your crew, with how the crew takes care of customers. And when I own restaurants in Louisville, I used to tell everyone, if a female person comes in here who’s older, I want you to treat them like you would treat my mother, your mother. If it’s an older man, I want you to treat them like you would treat your father or my father. And if it’s a younger person, I want you to treat them like you would treat your brother or sister.

Ashish Tulsian:

And that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a good point.

Craig Dunaway:

And people just want to be validated. And so it’s in spite of the fact that it’s a pennies business, I think people want to give back and do something more than just, you know, take an order in $13 increments. And so that’s what I mean by creating that culture, that everyday culture, because you’re not going to get rich or lose your tail off of one sandwich. You’re going to do it over weeks and months and years.

Ashish Tulsian:

Have you ever taken a franchise away as well?

Craig Dunaway:

Have we ever taken back a franchise? One time. Yeah, one time.

Ashish Tulsian:

Why?

Craig Dunaway:

Just didn’t work out well. Just didn’t think that, you know, just like we’re looking for a culture, we’re talking about culture within the restaurant business. Or a restaurant, but we’re also looking for a culture at Penn Station and we need our franchisees to be aligned with us. And sometimes they’re just, you’re just not. I mean, that’s okay. That’s the thing that I learned probably over the last 10 years in particular. I used to think it was me or it’s us. And sometimes people are just different, you know, and that doesn’t make anybody right or wrong. It just means we have a certain culture as a brand. We want to deal with suppliers and franchisees a certain way. And sometimes people just don’t want to do that. And that’s okay. So that’s where I give the life’s too short short speech. Let me help find you a buyer and let me help get you out of the system so you can go do what you want to do.

Ashish Tulsian:

What is it that you believe that, you know, people in franchising business don’t really understand? Like what’s the, you know, especially, I mean, just building on the point that you just said, right? There are times that you need to qualify, like it’s like recruitment, right? You need to qualify your franchisees correctly for their good and for your own good as well, right? What are the things that you have either become better at or you still feel that are not really understood in the world of franchising?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, I think it depends. You know, there are a lot of franchisees in this country who have more restaurant locations than Penn Station have and they get it. I was at a conference on a panel a few years ago and a gentleman came up to me and he said, I really appreciate what you said. He said, I have two locations. How do I get to 10? And I said, are you two profitable? And he said, no. And I said, well, I think if you want to scale, you need to make sure that your restaurants are profitable. And I think when when people are just getting into franchising or just starting their restaurant, even if it’s starting it from scratch as the wannabe franchisor, I don’t think that they necessarily put enough weight into the profitability, you know, and I get because my background is public accounting. I always knew I wanted to be in public accounting from the eighth grade on because my dad was a numbers guy. I think people shy away from numbers and the numbers of the lifeblood of the business. I mean, who goes out and plays golf and doesn’t keep a scorecard or who watches a foot NFL game yesterday and doesn’t constantly want to know what the score of the game was? And so I think people get intimidated by numbers. They’ve got a good recipe or they’ve got a good thought and they focus on that without focusing on what the byproduct of that is, which is did I make money at it or not? So I think that’s one side. And I believe the other side is you are buying into a concept as a franchisee. You’re buying into a model and you need to intimately understand that model and you need to intimately follow that model. And, you know, you need to make sure the franchisor has sustainability. And I think people go in. And again, this is particularly when we’re talking to inexperienced people who want to be a franchise candidate. I don’t think they align all of those things up properly. You know, they want to be in the restaurant industry because they, I don’t know, always want to be my own boss. But they never understood. They’ve never taken the time to understand the restaurant industry. I’ve asked countless candidates. Have you ever worked in the restaurant? No. You know. And so I’ll always ask them a question. All right. It’s Friday night. It’s nine o’clock. Your manager just quit, threw the keys on the counter. What are you going to do? And when you help someone like that and they think, I don’t want to do that.

Ashish Tulsian:

And that’s a reality that almost every restauranteur is going to face. Like, that’s so real all the time.

Craig Dunaway:

That’s so real. And so I feel like that, you know, early on, I wanted us to be able to sell every candidate. And then you quickly learn that this industry is not for everybody. So now we try to do people a favor by running them off. If this is you’re going to be doing this every day for 20 years. Are you sure you want to do this?

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely. I think I think that it’s fascinating that how many times I’ve actually told inexperienced newbies, you know, who came to me for advice that, OK, which franchise you should be taking. We want to go into the restaurant business. And I’ve told them that, hey, you know what? Instead of investing your like 500K to a million to start up and then learn, you know, why don’t you like just pick the concept that you plan to open, you know, go to that restaurant, become like a shift manager or just get any job over there. You know, you want to invest this money? Better to ask them not to pay you enough, you know, not to pay you much. Right. Invest your three months and probably after three months, see if this is something that you want to do, even like beyond just understanding what does it take to run it and how many of them still don’t do that, but they would rather go and find a concept and just invest in it. It’s just fascinating.

Craig Dunaway:

I think because a brand is proven concept, people think that they can make a turnkey, you know, and so I’ve advised candidates before. You need to buy a piece of rental property. I mean, I know you’re not happy with me right now, but I’m doing you a favor because this is a really, really tough business. And we had a candidate probably 10 years ago, husband and wife. They had just retired. And I asked him, why the restaurant industry? And they said, you know what, we just want to we want to put our 401k to work in something. And I said, this isn’t for you. Yeah, this isn’t for you. You’re going to thank me one day. I should reach out to him and find out how that went.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. You know, there are brands that have done company owned company operated concepts and then there are brands which are franchisee owned franchisee operated all over. And then there are brands who tried to do a combination. What do you think is the, you know, I think it’s a mindset. It’s a DNA difference between a COCO and a Fofo, you know, business. You know, if you had to pick, you know, two or three top points, you know, for a brand which is planning to or which does COCO as a business versus Fofo. What will those be?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, you know, our philosophy is we want an owner as close to the counter as possible. And so for us, it’s franchising. I mean, early on with with our founder, it was it was using other people’s money. You know, it was it was putting an owner who had capital close to the counter.

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s all the thoughts like that.

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, because he believed that that was going to take care of the guest. But, you know, you take a look at one of the most successful concepts in the country, Chipotle, and they’re all company owned. So I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong for us. It was making sure that franchisees understood that we don’t make money if you don’t make money. We have to help you drive your sales. We have to help you drive your bottom line or we’re not going to be able to grow. You know, we tell every franchise candidate who comes in, we are selling your return. We’re selling your profitability, you know, because we’re going to compile item 19 with all restaurant locations, not just the top 10 or 20. So and you have to build a different infrastructure. You know, if you’re all company owned unit, I mean, the people that you have in the field are going to be completely different than the people I have in the field. I mean, my people are support people for franchisees. But, you know, Chipotle, which is a phenomenal brand, they’re going to have people out in the field support the restaurants that they own. So I don’t know there’s a right or wrong, but I think you’ve got to be careful because, you know, I know as a Papa John’s franchisee really early on and you know, I’ve been in, you know, there was there was complaining amongst the franchisees because they felt like Papa John’s took focus too much on the company owned units. And I don’t know if they did or they didn’t. That’s just the way people look at it. I’m not getting the love that I feel like that I should get. So I think it’s a balance between the two. We like the model of focusing on franchisee profitability and not focusing on our own restaurants.

Ashish Tulsian:

And how’s the profitability going in the current world? I think restaurants have got stressed specifically in the last five years. And COVID just accelerated that, you know, at the back of, you know, so many people buying into this pie, you know, from marketplaces, 3PL, you know, how are you guys doing? And more than that, how do you look at how’s the pie of profitability changed?

Craig Dunaway:

Profitability certainly changed the last 12 to 18 months. You know, 2020 coming out of COVID and going into 2021 was phenomenal. You had COVID created the have and the have nots amongst brands. And then 22 really kind of normalized a little bit. You know, it kind of went back more to pre-COVID and then 23 is taking a hit as well. Margins have been tough in the industry. I don’t I don’t attend a lot of conferences, but the ones I do, I try to talk to other people who are running companies and just asking questions about margins and food cost and labor. Food costs have stabilized somewhat over the last six to 12 months. Labor’s gotten a little bit better, but the quality of the workforce isn’t quite what it was four years ago. And that’s universal in everyone you talk to. So it’s margins are thinner right now than they were. I think what it’s going to do, it’s going to create some unfortunate, you know, there’s going to be some unfortunate fallout, I think, in our industry over the next 12 to 18 months. And so as a brand, we have to create a model that allows franchisees to be as profitable as you can.

Ashish Tulsian:

When you say that, you know, some of the brands, you know, may take a hit in the next 12 to 18 months, you mean individual number of restaurants going down or you mean like the brands going down as well?

Craig Dunaway:

I think you could see a little bit of both. I do. I don’t, you know, you’ve got such large franchisees now, you know, and I don’t study large franchisees, but if they are highly leveraged and we’re seeing interest rates having doubled over the last 18 months, you could be creating, seeing a situation where somebody is going to come in and wind up getting a good deal. Yeah. Right. The bank’s going to force a sale and then somebody else is going to see a lot of consolidation happening and see a lot of consolidation. I happen to be, I was on a panel at a conference a few weeks ago with suppliers and, you know, they talked about margin and how their margins are thin, but they also recognize at the same time that restaurants are stressed and they just can’t keep raising prices and raising prices. And we know we can’t keep raising prices and raising prices. So I think the fallout, that’s where I think there’s going to be fallout. I mean, you know, what’s going to happen to gas prices over the next six months? You and I don’t know. And if we did, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking right now. But I’m not seeing, I’m seeing on the food side to get better, like I said, but I think there’s just some external factors that could cause some fallout.

Ashish Tulsian:

So interest rates is one, you know, the labor market and, you know, food cost is the other piece, which I think it’s not, it’s not exorbitant, you know, anymore. I mean, we’ll just rule out 21 and 22 as a little bit of, you know, stabilizing post-COVID. But what’s happening with the margins, you know, especially with third-party marketplaces, online ordering, delivery costs, you know, and, you know, because of that packaging costs, et cetera. Like, how do you look at, how are you looking at these margins for, especially for your friends?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, you know, the third-party delivery companies and, you know, God love them, right? They sell that it’s incremental business to the rest. I mean, I’ve heard this speech countless times when I talk to other, you know, other operators that, you know, everybody tells us it’s incremental. But really the third-party aggregators, I think what they’ve done, you know, and kudos to their model, but I think it hurts the restaurant businesses. They’ve commoditized restaurants, whereas before you may be thinking, I want Penn Station and now you may just go to third party and you look up 10 or 20 or 30 different brands and decide from that list what you want for the day. So, you know, paper and plastic prices have gone up.

So it’s increased packaging, you know, on the P&L. And then when you take a look at third-party delivery, I mean, it is a big expense on every franchisee’s P&L now, and I don’t just mean our franchisees. I mean all franchisees and all restaurant concepts. And I don’t know of any restaurant operator, and I’m talking about brands that I talk to who say this is the most phenomenal thing we ever have. They’re trying to manage all of those costs that you talked about. And I think there’s going to have to be some shakeout. I mean, technology has changed so much. And I take a look at our business and our third-party delivery. It’s the same as it was in January of 2022. So even as all of these other costs have gone up, consumers are still, as a percentage of sales, our consumers are still buying Penn Station through third party as much as they were two years ago. And when you talk to the third-party aggregators, they believe there’s a lot more upside. So that’s going to continue to erode margins on the P&L for, you know, for restaurants. So I think it’s going to cause, you know, like you said, marketplace, you know, because I think there’s a balance for the consumer, too. I mean, it’s getting more expensive for them. And I think that that’s where the consumer will ultimately, the market’s going to decide. If you think it’s not too expensive, you’re going to order through third party. And if you think it is, you’re either going to go to another concept or going to go pick it up or going to use marketplace.

Ashish Tulsian:

So were you guys big on delivery pre-COVID?

Craig Dunaway:

No, we did not. We had no third party before COVID. And we had studied it for a couple of years, but candidly felt like the costs were too high.

Ashish Tulsian:

But, you know, COVID kind of forced you into it like everybody else.

Craig Dunaway:

COVID forced us into it.

Ashish Tulsian:

So what percentage of it, you know, like retained post-COVID?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, it was at one time about 33 percent of our business and its highest third party was 33. And now it’s between 16 and 17 on a monthly basis. So it’s about half that, but it’s actually still more than I thought it would be.

Ashish Tulsian:

So did it make you think about the possibility of virtual restaurants as well?

Craig Dunaway:

I’m sorry. No, not really. You know, we’re working on our tech stack. And one of the things that we’re doing is, you know, we’ve really enhanced our web order over the last couple of years, try to make it very easy, less clicks, you know, for the consumer.

Ashish Tulsian:

For your own brand.

Craig Dunaway:

Yes. Yes. And we’ve seen that continue to we’ve seen that continue to grow.

Ashish Tulsian:

No, but what about the virtual restaurants like, you know, just cloud kitchen concept, closed kitchens?

Craig Dunaway:

We’ve not studied, you know, we’ve really not studied it over the last couple of years. I mean, we hired a director of franchise services a few years ago, and his role and goal was to be all places where the consumer is. But initially we felt like that our tech stack, we’re not first to market, so we’re not market leaders. So, you know, what we’re trying to do is evaluate and say, OK, what’s going to be a fad, what’s going to be a long term trend and assess it going that way. So we know there’s other areas where we’re going to need to play, you know, in the next 12, 24, 36 months. But we also have to get buy in at the franchise system, too. And we have to make sure it’s profitable for the franchisees. And I think as a franchisor, you better be really, really careful, you know, adopting the latest and greatest phase or fad, because if it’s not there in 12 months or 24 months, your franchisees going to look at like, what the heck are you doing? So we’ve got a step one and then we’ll be visiting step two and three in 2024. 

Ashish Tulsian:

So how’s been your relationship with technology, given that you mentioned tech stack, you know, and I’m assuming here that you’re talking about the consumer side, consumer facing, you know, piece, you know, per se. But what’s been your relationship with technology, you know, within Penn Station subs for managing the restaurants or for growth?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, it’s a balance. I think on the on the point of sales system side, I think what’s really important is to make sure that that the franchisees are getting the tools that they need to run their business more profitably and successfully. I think it’s a little bit of you have to balance that with what I talked about earlier with. I think people are intimidated by numbers. So you need to make sure that the amount of information they’re given is not so voluminous that they don’t look at it. So that’s really at the individual restaurant level on the franchise or level, it’s being where the customer is. But, you know, Ashish, I think back when when we first implemented five, six, seven years ago, online ordering about a year ago, I had my I.T. guy go back and look at the eight companies we’ve added and five of the eight are no longer in business. And so I think as as the franchise or it’s getting to know the company, how the company is funded, and then we have to make some assistant decisions. And this is working. That’s why we come to, you know, come to a lot of conferences is to get to know the people and understand the technology. I’m never going to understand the technology as well as you understand the technology, but understanding what’s going to be around in the long term and then making some assessments. Can we make money off of that technology and just not make sure we’re cluttering the P&L with with costs that you ultimately can’t drive sales on?

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, there is a do you think there is a there is a tech fatigue or an app fatigue, you know, by the number of tech pieces that you are, you know, continuously required to buy and look at?

Craig Dunaway:

That’s a great question. Yes, I do. I think that technology has changed so fast and so quickly the last 36 months. And I think COVID allowed a lot of new technology to come out because it just forced to come to market quickly. And I think there is and not because the technology is bad, because I don’t think people understand it at the restaurant level. I mean, restaurant guys are just slinging hash. And so you’re being bombarded all the time with this latest and greatest technology, but you still have to make money on it. And I think it’s best to take it in short, incremental steps than it is to adopt everything all at once. It’s kind of like I said, with our online ordering or five of the eight companies are no longer in business.

Ashish Tulsian:

What is it you define yourself as technology first or a necessary evil?

Craig Dunaway:

A little bit of both, a little bit of both. I think we were first. It was necessary. We used to be it was a necessary evil, but we have to be there. We have to be where the guest is. I mean, the consumer has changed so much, more so than restaurant operators have changed. We’ve had to adapt to the changing consumer. They’re not adapting to us. So we have to adopt that new technology. If we don’t, we’re going to get left behind.

Ashish Tulsian:

I still hear a necessary evil like I have to and not a first one.

Craig Dunaway:

Well, don’t hold it against me.

Ashish Tulsian:

Greg, 24 years and, you know, while you made it abundantly clear that there’s a lot more to be done, you know, you want to double in the next six to seven years. And that’s a that’s a great milestone to achieve at your current, you know, current volume. That’s that’s that’s quite a number. What what what’s your motivation today? You know, every day morning, what’s, what’s your motivation today? What’s the state of mind right now? What are you thinking in life?

Craig Dunaway:

You know, it’s that’s really a good question. I mean, I want to make sure as a brand for Penn Station, we want to create a win win situation between the brand and our franchisees. We think we’ve got a lot of runway. We just have a really, really good product. We’ve got a great group of franchisees. And I take a look at the white space, you know, in the 15 states that we’re in and we can triple in size and not even leave those markets that we’re in today. And so that’s where I’m a highly competitive person. We are highly competitive people and we feel like that we’ve got some unfinished business. So, you know, for me, you know, no longer being in the weeds. I want to make sure that the brand set up for the long term and, you know, that our franchisees are successful and everybody who comes been, you know, behind those franchisees is successful, too. So we’re building a great organization. We’re hiring a lot of really, really good people. You know, we used to hire when we needed somebody, you know, and it was not a great approach to it. And now we put people in place in anticipation of all that growth. So I’m excited to do that. You know, it’s nice to see somebody come in. They buy into the culture. They buy into the brand and think, man, this is something really, really special. So that’s what motivates me today. I mean, I’m not motivated by doing the details like I used to be. You know, I want to see this brand go to the next level. And that’s what’s fun, you know, when you’re meeting, like when you’re at a conference and you’re understanding that next technology and saying, can this benefit us in the long term? That’s more fun. That’s a lot of fun. So I enjoyed that.

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you at times feel that you should have left, you know, being, you know, in the details or in the trenches and should have, you know, taken the role to be, you know, more 20,000, 30,000 feet?

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, you know, your, I think your strength can become your weakness or your weakness can become your strength. And I think there’s a balance there. We spent way too much time as an organization working in the business and not on the business. And we’ve really changed that mindset over the last three or four years. But yeah, yeah, that’s a, to me, that’s not being critical, but that’s a fair criticism of us. What we did made franchisees very, very successful. But it really was at the expense of doubling or tripling the size of the brand. And you can’t look back. I mean, it is what it is. So, you know, we’re not looking over our shoulder. We’re looking ahead. But yeah, we spent a lot of time. We spent a lot of time making a lot of things really, really good. But certainly it cost us in size.

Ashish Tulsian:

What has changed, what had to change in Craig in the last three, four years, as you are saying, you know, I’m sure you had to let go for you to elevate and start working on the business and sort of inside the business. So personally, what changed? What do you feel is different?

Craig Dunaway:

You know, you’re walking down the hallway and two people are having a conversation about something you know a little bit about and you want to know more and you have to keep going. You have to turn over to the next generation. And it’s really what it’s changed for me is the type of questions I ask. You know, I work with I talked about working with each department, but you’re setting departmental goals and you’re bringing all these departmental goals up to the organizational goals. And so I can’t know everything in the business like I used to.

Ashish Tulsian:

And give me an example of what to change in questions that you ask.

Craig Dunaway:

Well, you know, I still negotiate like tech stack, you know, you brought up a lot about tech stack and I’m not in the middle of that. I’m completely relying on the team and we have weekly meetings and they’re bringing me this is what’s going on. And so I’m asking questions more in line with the franchisees profitability or more in line with how does this benefit the customer. And four years ago, I would have been the middle of it, you know, asking a tech person those questions. And you just can’t you can’t do that anymore as you continue to grow in size. So I think, you know, that’s mindset is having been a CPA and, you know, knowing restaurant business is very, very detailed. But it’s not it’s not been a hard transition to be. I don’t I always say our founders at 30,000 feet. And I said this earlier, I’m 10 to 20,000 feet. So I’ve got a balance of it. And I think I, you know, I guess the jury’s still out. I think I do a pretty good job of balancing those things. I know I can’t be in the details of everything. And so I try not to be. I try to leave it to the people who are in the details and make sure I’m asking good questions, you know, in the meetings.

Ashish Tulsian:

But you still need to, you know, kind of power through the phase of let go, because you know that those people are doing something either not as good or making mistakes that you can almost see, like you can you can foresee that this is going to go wrong and this is not going to land as well, you know, as everybody intends

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, I don’t know.

Ashish Tulsian:

What do you do then?

Craig Dunaway:

Well, they probably actually make better decisions than I was making. You know, you ask. It’s in the questions that you ask. You know, you can see somebody doing something wrong and you try to give them a different perspective on how to look at that. And so, you know, I’ve said a couple of times today that I negotiate all of our contracts and I don’t do that because I’m arrogant about negotiating contracts. If I’m negotiating a contract with you, I want to know what you are looking for out of that contract. Tell me how this deal makes it worthwhile for you. And then we we think we have a good feel on what makes it worthwhile for us. And we want to try to marry those two to create a win-win situation. So I think dealing with someone working on a task or a department in the office

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, they’re giving you feedback on something and through the course of your questioning, you can get them to see what you, I don’t say want them to see, that sounds manipulative, but you can get them to see a different perspective that maybe they hadn’t thought about before. Have you ever thought about this? What if we did that? What did the supplier say about this? You’re just trying to teach them to grow. And, you know, I think, and the other thing that I’ve learned, Ashish, is that I think the further away you are from it, when you’re not in the weeds, you can often ask better questions.

Craig Dunaway:

Because you’re, that’s, you know, you’re dispassionate about it, right? Because you’re not emotional about that problem the way somebody else is because they’re closer to the problem.

Ashish Tulsian:

Right, so I think as a leader, you want them to take ownership, but you don’t want them to take so much ownership they’re arguing bad points. And as the leader, you’ve got to ask them good questions to get them to look at it from a different perspective.

Craig Dunaway:

And that’s fair. And that’s, you know, you know about this Socratic approach, you know, the Socrates?

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, Socrates.

Craig Dunaway:

Yeah, Socrates used to say that, that you, I can lead you to an answer that is the right answer according to, you know, or what it should be, according to all the information and data points that you have by just asking you right questions. And when people come to me and ask me, you know, questions and they think that I have answers, I don’t have answers, I just have better questions.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, when I was in public accounting, you know, a client would ask me a question and I would say, what do you want the answer to be? And it’s really, it’s kind of funny, but it’s true because now what you need to do is go look for facts to support that answer that you’re looking for. And often the facts are there. And I believe most people, when they ask a question, they know the answer to the question, they want validation, you know, of their question.

Craig Dunaway:

That’s one way of looking at it. I think the other funny or maybe the not so funny way is that in management consulting, there’s this word saying that if you torture data enough, it’ll speak the truth that you want.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I used to, when I was in public accounting, I said that we used to charge for free advice.

Craig Dunaway:

That’s great, Craig. I think that’s, it’s really fascinating to, you know, know this entire journey. One thing that I can say, you know, what I feel through this conversation is that, you know, organizations and brands are projections and reflections of the leaders, you know, who run that. I’m sure, you know, what I can clearly see is that Penn Station and the work that you have done, I think it’s really people-centric. I can feel people-centricity, you know, both sides, people who, you know, work inside Penn Station, you know, under the brand, with the company, as well as people who are your customers, you know, the end consumers. And that’s really heartening, I think. I don’t really see any reason why, you know, you won’t be able to, you know, double, you know, maybe in less than six years. At the same time, I see this, you know, the numbers side, that’s the, you know, you made a comment in between that, you know, people shy away from, you know, looking at numbers. And I think I am that guy. I’m good with numbers when I look at them. 99% of the times, I don’t want to look at them because I’m a creator. I feel like a creator all the time, right? So I want the creative side. I don’t want the, I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want the bad side. I don’t want to know that my creative genius is not looking good in the numbers and, you know, and that, but when creative genius, when compassionate leader meets numbers, I think that’s where magic happens.

Ashish Tulsian:

Well, I appreciate that. We, you know, it’s a great team. I just get to be the person who sits here before you today, but there’s a lot of great people in the organization for sure. So certainly honored to be here.

Craig Dunaway:

Super, Craig, thanks for agreeing to do this. This is a great conversation. I feel, I felt enriched and really, really great to know you and know your journey. I haven’t tried a Penn Station, you know, yet, but I’m going to definitely make sure that I find myself in one of the 15 states and run to one.

Ashish Tulsian:

I like that. I appreciate that. I’m honored. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you.