About the Guest

David Birzon is CEO of Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, one of the largest and most popular breakfast restaurants in the country. Under David’s leadership, Snooze has grown to now operating over 35 restaurants across five states, with over 2,100 employees. Prior to joining Snooze in 2012, David spent 23 years with Paradise Bakery. Paradise Bakery was bought by Panera in 2006.

Episode Summary

David Birzon, Chief Executive Officer at Snooze, an A.M. Eatery opens up about how no uniforms, giving 1% back to the community and allowing employees to “let their freak flag fly” helps attract and retain top talent.

Episode Transcript

Zach Goldstein:

00:01

From fake meat and robot chefs, to ghost kitchens and delivery drones, the restaurant industry is rapidly evolving. Welcome to Food Fighters, bringing you interviews with the leading industry trailblazers. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein.

Zach Goldstein:

00:15

Welcome back to Food Fighters. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein, and I’m here today with David Birzon, Chief Executive Officer of Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, one of the largest and most popular breakfast restaurants in the country. Prior to joining Snooze in 2012, David spent 23 years at Paradise Bakery, including four years at Panera after Paradise was bought. David, welcome to the Food Fighters podcast.

David Birzon:

00:40

Thanks for having me.

Zach Goldstein:

00:42

Your history is one that makes you a almost lifelong food fighter, and that is really awesome and unique in the restaurant industry. And now you’re doing something completely different in many ways in building this brand, at Snooze and expanding nationwide. Let’s talk about some of the things that make Snooze unique and what’s so exciting to you about that?

David Birzon:

01:05

Yeah. I mean, Snooze is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The first time I laid eyes on the initial brand my first thought was, this is so clever. No one’s done anything different with breakfast in this country for 30 years. I mean truly a new vision of what breakfast is and can be. And being in the industry, it’s hard to find white space, meaning a space where a business can really grow and own something by themselves where there’s very little competition. And that was really exciting to me. As well as just the really unique really unparalleled culture that we have that stands out amongst our peers and in the industry.

Zach Goldstein:

01:43

That’s great. And Snooze is, has been focused on culinary excellence and responsible sourcing in the breakfast segment. You do some things that are really unique in creating an upbeat hospitality driven environment. And that’s led to pretty rapid growth. Tell us about that growth and what’s to come. And, and maybe some of those things that are in the Snooze DNA that are very important to the brand.

David Birzon:

02:08

Sure. The growth part is, is fun. When you have a great brand, that gives you license to grow. When each restaurant that you open is successful, that gives you license to grow. Snooze is, has really invented this idea of better breakfast. I mean, when you think about it breakfast has not changed in a long time, as I said earlier. And we’ve really been able to take this idea of chef-driven restaurants, which have gained a tremendous popularity over the years and really put that into, into a chain format or as we like to call it, we hate the “chain” word, we like to use “collection of restaurants” or a collection of 40 restaurants today. And we are growing at, at a, at a quick pace. And you know, our goal is to really bring what we do into the communities that we serve.

David Birzon:

02:54

And part of that service really stems from our sustainability and our community endeavors. We’re a 1% company, meaning we give 1% of sales back into the local communities in which we operate, which is really exciting and, and a big part of our internal culture. And we also responsibly source the majority of our food that comes through the door. So 95% of our food is responsibly sourced. Our goal is to get to a hundred, a 100%. You know, what that means to us is first and foremost, is it crave-able? Does it respect animals? No antibiotics, no confinement, no added hormones. Does it respect humans? There’s nothing on our 86’d ingredient list that’s bad for people. We visit every vendor and farm that we work with and make sure that they follow guidelines we trust. And what that does is really create this strong internal culture. And if you want to create a great brand, it starts with your own people. If your own people can’t be loyal to what you’re doing and really deeply believe in what you’re doing you know, you have to win their hearts and minds before you can win one single guest’s heart and mind. And you know, it’s funny, I’ll go speak at orientations for our staff, for new restaurants and I’ll ask people, why did you choose to come to work for Snooze? And their first answer is usually because you believe in what we believe.

Zach Goldstein:

04:17

That’s powerful. And it’s powerful because such a large portion of your staff, the people that work at Snooze are indeed millennials and such a large portion of the customers that love Snooze come from that millennial population and they care about the food they’re eating, um being fresh and natural and organic and locally sourced. You’ve leaned into that heavily clearly. And so are you thinking specifically about certain demographics as you build your brand? Are there things that you’re doing to, to appeal to millennials in, in the Snooze customer experience and in the Snooze worker population as well?

David Birzon:

04:56

Uh I would say without question, um not so much with our sustainability and our community pieces. You know, we really just have a belief that we want to create a better world. And as you mentioned, I spent 23 years at Paradise Bakery and Panera Bread. And after leaving I was incredibly proud of my accomplishments. But I also questioned, did I really have a big impact on anything beyond the people I worked with and, and serving, you know, great meals? So I really wanted my second act to do something better for the world. And we asked ourselves that question, you know, can a restaurant business change the world? And we believe we can. It’s small right now. It’s one community at a time. But that being said, our brand is geared towards millennials. It’s very experiential. It’s got this great environment. The music is really energetic, so, you know, it is millennial forward. It is. Millennials love the energy, they love experiences, they love spending on experiences. And the most unique thing about our brand is we have a full bar, not just mimosas and bloody Marys, but a full bar starting at 6:30 in the morning. And it really creates a lot of energy and a lot of vibe.

Zach Goldstein:

06:06

Yeah. It’s exciting. And it also creates a a nice packed environment of the people waiting to get into Snooze. There’s, there’s an energy about people ready to sit down and, and have their, have their meal. And so that’s a lot of fun. When you think about the unique customer experience, you talk about experiential and being a dining experience, you actually have empowered your staff, every single one of them to make decisions about how to create great guest experiences. And this is something that that’s really unique because often the word loyalty gets turned into uh rote rewards. You think of loyalty as, ‘can we deliver a great experience to our guests’? Tell us about some of those things that are unique in the Snooze DNA and how your servers act on on that responsibility.

David Birzon:

06:58

Sure. It starts at the very beginning. When we hire someone, we spend a lot of time just talking about hospitality and what does that mean? And we’re really looking when we’re, when we’re hiring people, we’re looking for people that have a, a true desire to serve. And I think that that is, is something that’s often left out of the decision making process is in order to be in hospitality, you ha you cannot mind serving others. You have to really enjoy it and that’s where you get your energy from. The second thing that we do that really opens that piece up is we really allow them to be to be themselves. So we celebrate individuality. And I’ve always thought it funny that most restaurant businesses or most businesses anywhere, they, the first thing they do is say that they’re hiring you for your great personality. And then the next thing they do is they tell you to put on these khaki pants, this polo shirt and this name tag. So we don’t have any uniforms at Snooze. We really are our, our employee handbook basically says, wear a clean Snooze t-shirt, have good hygiene, and let your freak flag fly. Be yourself and really let your personality come out in that guest experience. And then this is a celebration of people. So we give our servers the ability to… Our servers are actually required to give away at least three meals uh or pancakes, or, we call them “pickles”, meaning you’re, you’re giving someone a little treat throughout their shift and, and we will call them on it if they don’t because we’re really wanting them to take care of our guests. And, and trying to train them to look for opportunities to go above and beyond and take care of our guests.

Zach Goldstein:

08:37

That is so unique. Both the ability, the encouragement of staff to be themselves and then to double down in actual practices that are, that are unique: dress the way that’s appropriate to you, act the way that’s appropriate to you, obviously with the guest in mind and even treat guests to at your own discretion. I mean, that’s, that feels risky to a lot of brands. They feel… They are scared to do something like that. And you lean into it. Is that, is that always been in the DNA of Snooze or it’s something that you feel like has been built over time?

David Birzon:

09:10

It’s absolutely been a part of our DNA and we we actually look at it as a competitive mode. You know, when you’re a successful concept and you’ve got waits seven days a week at, at as we do in most of our restaurants, the competition comes out pretty fiercely. And – look, we have no question, people could hire a great chef and knock off our food. People could hire a great architect and knock off our ambiance. But it’s really, you know, I always say the best restaurants, the ones that really make it and that are enduring are the ones that find that kind of magic combination of food, ambiance, and people. And I don’t think many brands out there are willing to take the risk on the people that we do. And we get great people. People appreciate I mean, again, I’ll ask our employees, ‘how many people have ever worked at a place where there was no uniform rule?’ and no one raises their hand. And I said, ‘how many people came to Snooze because of our beliefs?’ and they all raise their hand. And in today’s environment, where competition for employees and great people is like I’ve never seen it before in, in my almost 30 years in this industry, uh you’ve got to be able to hire great people. If you can’t hire great people in this industry, you will never be great. That’s how it translates.

Zach Goldstein:

10:33

Q&A with the restaurant industry’s leading disruptors. This is Food Fighters, the podcast.

Zach Goldstein:

10:41

Restaurants have have in many ways kind of they’ve been scared of being too day part heavy. And so a lot of restaurants try to diversify when they get their traffic. Snooze leans in heavily to ‘we are in an A.M. Eatery’ and it’s reflected in your hours and it’s obviously reflected in your menu. And you are doing brisk traffic during that period. But what are some of the challenges of being a narrower daypart business? And, and how do you turn those challenges into, into your strengths?

David Birzon:

11:11

I think the challenges are fairly self evident is that the question that gets asked to me, you know, so often is, is ‘how do you sleep at night when you know that you’re paying rent 24 hours a day, yet you’re only using the space for eight hours a day?’. And you know, there’s a lot of fixed costs associated with restaurants and, and usually everyone’s trying to do anything they can to offset those. I think the benefits where what, what’s really worked well for us is we are one day part and we’re open from 6:30 to 2:30, so, obviously we’re open during lunch hours, but we really only have a breakfast and brunch menu. We don’t do sandwiches, we don’t do soups, we don’t do salads like you see at many other breakfast places and that allows us to be great at what we do.

David Birzon:

11:55

And I always tell people, I think there’s one restaurant brand in the world that does all three day parts successfully and that’s probably McDonald’s. Truly. They do business at breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I think we have built up this great credibility and trust about what it is we do so well and that people understand the hours that we’re open. And it also, secondly, provides this great quality of life for managers. This is a difficult industry. Anyone that’s looking to come into our industry generally has to accept the fact that not only are they going to be working weekends, but they’re going to be working late nights. And again, that’s our hiring proposition is, you know, we’ve been able to get people from great restaurant brands come to work for Snooze because of the quality of life. And that that proposition and great people allows us to be a great business.

Zach Goldstein:

12:48

Do you think anyone is is looking at doing breakfast for dinner? Is that a thing that we’re going to see more of? I mean, people love your food, they love the experience. Do you find opportunities to expand the breakfast menu to other day parts or it’s just simply too hard?

David Birzon:

13:04

No, I don’t think it’s diff– I don’t think it’s, it’s, it’s difficult. And I do agree with your premise. I think what’s, what’s so unique about this world today, especially millennials, I mean, I’ll walk into a Snooze, any one of our restaurants on a Tuesday or Wednesday at 11:00 AM and we’re packed. We might even be on a wait and I’m just wondering like, don’t people work anymore? Don’t people have jobs? And the world… It’s true. The world is truly changed and, and people work different hours. Traditional jobs are only part of the story today. People work from home, people work at coffee shops, people work at restaurants. We see people on their laptops working in our restaurants. So I absolutely believe that there’s opportunity for dinner. I mean the world just like the world you know, has become a much smaller place via the internet. I believe that the world has also become 24 hours. People really work, eat, different things. So without question, there’s great opportunity there.

Zach Goldstein:

14:10

One of the other changes that’s happening and certainly there is clear demand for people eating breakfast food but that gets delivered to them. And, and so you kind of saw the growth of your off-premise business happen fairly organically. It’s not something you initially leaned into. But now you’re starting to see it pickup. What, what was that experience? When did you realize, huh, there is actually a meaningful amount of demand for Snooze food off premise? And how did you start thinking about how to navigate that?

David Birzon:

14:42

Yeah, that’s a great and it’s actually a great followup to your previous question because I believe that breakfast for dinner really will manifest itself through delivery more than any other way that we approach it. And look, our, our industry has just gone through a ton of change as you know, I, I probably probably the last big change in our industry was the advent of quick casual in the, in the late nineties and early two thousands. And aside from this, I think delivery has been just a huge disruptor in, in a, in a positive way. And I really struggled with delivery when it first became a thing. But every time I started to think about it as convenience it, it really resonated with me. So delivery, didn’t like the idea of, breakfast food travels terrible, but when you put it in the, in terms of convenience and being able to serve the guests in a way that benefits them it made a lot of sense.

David Birzon:

15:39

And that business, you know, we did notice it because people started ordering our food. And we actually had a belief that breakfast isn’t gonna really work for delivery. The food travels not well. But guests give us a lot of slack on that piece because it’s crave-able and it’s what they want. And we also thought that, you know, delivery is about convenience and that getting breakfast delivered in the morning to your home isn’t necessarily a convenient thing. But sure enough our beliefs really don’t matter. It’s what the guest ultimately does and how they spend their money and how they spend their time. And we actually just saw this business start to grow more and more and more and realized like, Hey, we’ve never even approached this. We’ve never built an infrastructure around it. We’ve never really put any systems or tools around it. So we think there’s great opportunity there as much as as we didn’t believe in it to start.

Zach Goldstein:

16:32

It was, it was actually before you even actively partnered with any of the delivery companies, the orders just started showing up. Right? They were getting called in I guess early on.

David Birzon:

16:43

Yup. Yup.

Zach Goldstein:

16:43

That was the initial, that was your initial foray into delivery is they were going around the system, if you will.

David Birzon:

16:51

No question. I mean the delivery companies, if you don’t partner with them and you’re still a brand that people crave,uthey’re still going to call and place orders and people are still going to try and use that third party for delivery. And look, I think it’s a, I think it’s a great thing. And at the end of the day, not to sound too cliche,uyou know, we’d rather,ujoin them than try to beat them and you know, and another way we say it in an off color way, is we say, you know, we’d rather have them,uinside our tent pissing out than outside our tent pissing in. Like we really, it behooves us to work with these companies, not fight them, because they’re here to stay. And I think it took me a long time to get my arms around that fact. But convenience is here to stay. And I think we’ve now firmly entered a new world of,uof restaurants.

Zach Goldstein:

17:43

The digitization of restaurants as, as I often call it, and the fact that people want be able to order… It’s not just the convenience of delivery, it’s actually, as we talk about millennials and the next generations after them ordering from their phone or their computer is familiar to them, that’s how they buy a lot of things, right? It’s the Amazon-ification of of the world. And this is something that, that Panera leaned heavily into in, in building their own off premise platform and even their own delivery drivers. And yet even they have adopted partnerships with some of the third parties. And so it feels like [inaudible] you got to play both sides of that tent. In reality at this point.

David Birzon:

18:25

There is no question. The guests are demanding it. And that’s why Panera started to, to go that direction. And it’s one thing to say, ‘Hey, this is how we would rather have it be’, but ultimately the guests are going to get what they want or they’re not going to get your product at all.

Zach Goldstein:

18:39

Right. Right. So a lot of your stores have fairly sizable footprints and they’re in prime real estate. I would imagine and the, the, that there’s a build out there and so there’s, there’s an investment in the real estate and yet the delivery you know, has a pretty considerable cost. So how are you thinking about the future that involves ghost kitchens or virtual restaurants and and what does, what kind of change might that mean if you see off premise, a pretty meaningful growing portion of your business?

David Birzon:

19:13

Yes. I mean, we’ve absolutely looked at ghost kitchens. I think the problem for our business is, and it’s not a problem, it’s a problem everyone wishes they had, is that we are busy pretty much from 6:30 to 2:30. So we don’t have a lot of excess capacity. That being said I think some of the technology that’s coming along right now really allows us as operators to to, to really flow, or external orders coming in for delivery. We can pace them through the kitchen, we can pace how those orders come in, we can pace how those orders go out. But Del…, You know, goes kitchens are really the solution for specific areas of town where we have very busy restaurants and can’t take additional orders to really serve that demand. And then as you alluded to earlier in the podcast we close at 2:30 and I really think that, that ultimately I see a lot of traction for us there, being able to actually keep these restaurants not open to the public, but keep on a small staff where we’re able to meet delivery demands and stay open till nine, 10 o’clock at night.

Zach Goldstein:

20:23

I’ll wrap up on this note that for an industry that has seen some steady growth but at times challenges in traffic, breakfast has, as a day part been driving upwards of 50% of that industry-wide growth. And Snooze has been a key player in driving daypart traffic in restaurants. And so as you continue to grow, what other changes do you expect industry-wide? Are more brands that operate in the dinner or lunch segment going to lean heavily into breakfast? Do you think you’ll see more breakfast-only competition? What’s the evolution of, of your day part now that you’ve proven it can be so successful?

David Birzon:

21:04

I think you just answered that question to some extent. You know, we, we’re, we’re an old, fairly staid industry and anytime there’s a new opportunity, it’s kind of like a gold rush. So everybody starts to look at it. In our South Austin location, when we first opened there three years ago, I mean we were the only place within two miles doing breakfast or brunch and now we probably have six direct competitors that have opened into that space. Everybody is looking to fill that space. And it’s a lot of opportunity. And I think to your point as well, restaurants that are lunch and dinner only are opening their doors earlier and trying to take advantage of the opportunity that we’ve created. And that’s why our goal is continually to be the best at what we do, to own the markets that we go into and to continue to scale nationally and really be the dominant player in the breakfast category.

Zach Goldstein:

22:03

Well, you’re doing quite a job at that so far. And so congrats on all of your growth and, and Snooze, an A.M. Eatery is expanding across the country. And so for those that haven’t been, now’s your time and you may even get a free pancake while you’re there. If you, if you have a server and you get lucky.

David Birzon:

22:21

I hope so.

Zach Goldstein:

22:22

David, thanks so much for your time. This was really fantastic and it’s exciting to watch what you’re doing with Snooze. And look forward to tracking the evolution of your growing brand.

David Birzon:

22:35

Great. It was fun. Thank you Zach.

Zach Goldstein:

22:36

Absolutely.

David Birzon:

22:36

Bu-Bye.

Zach Goldstein:

22:36

You’ve been listening to Food Fighters with me, Zach Goldstein. To subscribe to the podcast or to learn more about our featured guests, visit Thanx.com/food-fighters. That’s “Thanx” spelled “T H A N X.com/food-fighters”. This podcast is a production of Thanx, the leading CRM and digital engagement solution for restaurants. Until next time, keep fighting food fighters.