About the Guest

Chef Eric Greenspan is a Food Network Iron Chef Winner and Culinary Director for Virtual Dining Concepts where Chef Greenspan’s team is responsible for creating crave-worthy menus suited for delivery. With 20+ years of experience operating fine dining, quick service, and virtual brands, Greenspan is considered the pioneer in the virtual food movement and “King of Comfort Food.” 

Episode Summary

In this episode, we chat with Chef Eric Greenspan, a celebrated chef whose resume boasts tenure at some of the most prominent fine dining establishments in Los Angeles. Chef Greenspan shares the foresight into virtual brands that prompted him to invest in the concept as early as 2018. Zach and Chef Greenspan chat about the proliferation of ghost kitchens and what it takes to operate a successful virtual brand – from marketing to margin control. Tune in to this episode to learn the ins and outs of delivery in the virtual space and how Chef Eric and his team at Virtual Dining Concepts have launched some of the most iconic national virtual brands to date.

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

(00:19):

Welcome back to Food Fighters. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein, really excited to be chatting with Chef Eric Greenspan today. Chef Greenspan is a former Iron Chef winner and leads the virtual dining concept culinary team responsible for creating crave worthy menus suited for delivery with 20 plus years of experience operating fine dining, quick service and virtual brands. Chef Greenspan is considered the pioneer in the virtual food movement and the king of comfort food. Welcome chef, excited to chat with you.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(00:48):

Excited to be here. That’s that’s quite an intro. I appreciate that.

Zach Goldstein

(00:53):

Well, you really are a true pioneer in the virtual brand world and you have done some collaborations with very big names, which I’d love you to chat about, but starting with delivery only concepts. I think it was as early as 2018. What’s unusual is before that you were, you were winning iron chef, you were creating fine dining brands in Southern California. What prompted you to go all in on the concept of delivery only concepts?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(01:21):

You know, it’s a fun story. It started out when I started growing my brick and mortar world, I learned and realized that for a brick and mortar operations to work for me and my goals, both personally and financially and creatively, I knew that I wanted to have multiple kinds of concepts and multiple kinds of units. And so I moved rather quickly into, opening I think I opened like seven restaurants in like a year and a half and it was aggressive, but I didn’t want to wait 10 years to find out that, oh, I don’t like this. This is no fun. And so luckily I did that because within 18 months I realized this is not what I’m wanting to do.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(02:08):

I found myself not being able to have an impact on, on any of the operations because I spent most of the time driving in a car back and forth from one place to the other and not on time cultivating the food and being involved with the team. So it was really, it really stimulated my desire to kind of span the gamut between quick service and fine dining and all sorts of different concepts. You know, I constantly have all sorts of different ways that I want to express myself creatively. But operationally it was, it was no bueno. So when I, when I dissolved the midcourse hospitality group, I was looking for a break and I was looking at wanting to keep busy. I wanted to find something to do. And, you know, I had been talking to the cloud kitchens people almost for about a year while they were filling up their first location.

Zach Goldstein

(02:56):

And this is Travis Kalanick’s virtual Cloud Kitchens?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(02:59):

This was pre Travis Kalanick before Travis ever even came on board with them. They had one unit in like Koreatown in Los Angeles. And I said, you know what? We’ve been talking to these guys, let’s give it a try. I launched my first ghost kitchen brand, Chino, which is like a fun tongue in cheek, Asian, Latin fusion concept. We took the smallest kitchen. I said, “let’s give this a try”, got in there. It was fun. It was successful like we got some great buzz, people got excited about it, but I realized really quickly that the only way for the finances of a ghost kitchen to work was to have multiple concepts kind of coming out of the kitchen at the same time.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(03:47):

That’s when myself and my partner developed what we called the alt/grub/faction. And we started kind of laying concepts on top of concepts on top of concepts within it. And for me, that was super stimulating because then I could do all the things that I get with my brick and mortar it’s in terms of having different concepts and different ways of expressing myself and that, that all in one team in one room. So I could go in there and I could design a new chorizo breakfast burrito for brekkie. And at the same time, a chopped cheese sandwich for two on a roll. And at the same time kind of work on the fried chicken that eventually became BooBoos and, you know, develop and expand the Chino menu. And I can do that kind of all at once with one team in one location, and I’ve found that, you know, amazing.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(04:33):

That was kind of what not necessarily drove me to the field, but it’s what kept me in the field.

Zach Goldstein

(04:40):

And since then, out of alt/grub/faction out of VDC, I mean, your collaborations have been quite prominent: Mariah’s cookies with Mariah Carey, Mr. Beast’s burger, Mario Lopez’s Mario’s Tortas Lopez. I can keep going. That was a big step forward in the evolution of this virtual concept.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(05:03):

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, look, I was blessed while working in the cloud kitchen facility to have met Robert Earl, you know, Robert Earl from Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, Buca di Beppo, Bertuccis, Earl of Sandwich. I mean, he’s a Titan of the industry, Old school restauranteur, but somebody who really saw the value in virtual brands and they were operating some virtual brands in the kitchen next to ours at that cloud kitchens facility.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(05:29):

I learned really quickly that the only way that this thing was good, that that ghost kitchens and virtual brands, et cetera, works, you know, as a business model is with scale. And so, you know, Robert and I started talking and we went up, partnering up on, on the alt/grub/faction, we had an arrangement and we were working together on that. And when Robert came to me with the idea for virtual dining concepts, you know, the idea of doing these collaborations, creating these brands and getting out of the ghost kitchen and into helping independent restauranteurs and scaling that way, and asked me to be involved, it was kind of a no brainer and I’ve always enjoyed my working relationship with him and the opportunity to kind of help build this company and get involved with these things was something that I couldn’t pass up.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(06:17):

So that was really kind of a blessing that kind of moved, moved the dial forward, and then together you’re right. We’ve done some, some really fun, amazing collaborations, with the tortas brand with Mario Lopez and the Sub Brand and Pauly D and the chicken brand with Tyga and Mariah’s cookies. And then not to mention, the accomplishment that was Mr. Beast burger, it’s been quite a lot in a short period of time.

Zach Goldstein

(06:46):

Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Now, one of the things that you mentioned is how can a ghost brand really enhance the existing offerings of a restaurant, and many of your concepts are being produced out of cloud kitchens, but not all, right? Some are being produced out of other places?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(07:06):

Well, to be 100% clear, we do not play in actually, that’s not true. We do have some coming out. We do have some coming out of the cloud kitchens space of a true ghost kitchen, but our, our main business model and the grand majority of what we do is actually, there’s a difference between ghost kitchens and virtual brands and virtual concepts. And we’re definitely high up there on the virtual, we lead the way in the virtual concept stage outside of a traditional ghost kitchen model. Right.

Zach Goldstein

(07:46):

Right. So, so explain what that means, because I actually think there’s a fair amount of disconnect in the industry between that. And there are, there are people trying to solve the question of where is the food made? Is it at a quote unquote traditional restaurant under a different brand? Or is it at a ghost kitchen? And then where is the food purchased? Is it on a third-party delivery site or do you go to direct to consumer, et cetera? How have you thought about the kind of matrix of how this world is evolving?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(08:14):

It’s the fun part about, you know, the about virtual dining concept is that there’s no playbook, you know, no one’s done what we are doing right now. And so obviously that’s the challenge, right? It’s trying to figure out how to kind of connect those dots with that. You know, like when you run a brick and mortar restaurant, that’s in an industry that’s been happening forever. You’re like, oh, that’s how they did it. Now I can do it this way or change it that way. But there’s really not much learnings to gather from, from the competition or from past experiences because no, one’s really done it before. And so that’s been, you know, a real exciting part of this concept, but, you know, I think you’re right.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(08:51):

You touched on, there’s a, a great disparity between, or an understanding of ghost kitchens versus virtual brands. A ghost kitchen is one where you’re renting a new space and trying to cover the economics of that new space, running delivery, only concepts with no kind of brick and mortar, no retail presence. What we do and what I thought was so brilliant about Robert’s vision was that we create brands that fit into existing restaurants, existing brick, and mortar spaces as a way to kind of enhance and add to their already existing revenue streams. And our job is to make sure that it kind of fits seamlessly and we get them trained and they’re able to kind of execute our mutual brand while not disrupting their existing brands so that they don’t have to outlay any more money. You know, look, the challenge that I had with Alt/Grub/Faction, and I think a lot of ghost kitchen brands, uh, the challenge is monetize it when you, when you have to pay all the fees and the third party delivery companies, et cetera. And, and, you know, and you have to kind of make enough noise just to drive sales. It’s really hard to make the economics work of the ghost kitchen itself, unless you have a significantly established brand. It’s very hard to make those economics work. And so what we do is, is create an environment where people can, can get into the virtual brand game without having to worry about it. And I’m not going to have think about packaging without thinking about marketing without thinking about training, and culinary creativity, et cetera. But most importantly, without having to lay out any money, you know, so that you can kind of dip your toe into that environment and know what you’re doing without having to sign a lease and, and staff a whole separate kitchen.

Zach Goldstein

(10:37):

The pitch to an existing restaurant then is here’s the recipe. Here are the ingredients, here’s the packaging. And we’ll slot the in into a time where you have capacity in your kitchen?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(10:47):

And here’s the training materials. And most importantly, you know, what we’ve done, is now you’re a part of a national marketing campaign. So, you know, when Mr Beast drops a video to 70 million people, you can benefit from that. And I think that’s one of the really big differentiators that we’ve experienced thus far is teaming is collaborating with these celebrities to kind of get people, to try the brands and expereince the brands. At the end of the day, it’s gonna come down to quality. It’s going to come down to, what’s the value prop? Did you enjoy the experience? Did you enjoy the food that was, was the price, right, et cetera. But that early adaption from a customer is very, very, very hard in the virtual space.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(11:28):

I always say that, like, you know, one of the main things that I learned through my Alt/Grub experience was the value of a sign, you know, and, and a lot of people find that super shocking to hear from a guy like me, who’s who, so in the virtual space, right. But signs are valuable. Like it’s hard to make noise in a merely virtual food court of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of units.

Zach Goldstein

(11:49):

And you don’t control the rankings. You don’t control where you show up in those third parties. They’re constantly changing that. And so, you know, that’d be like having a restaurant with a big sign, but the traffic patterns changed by the day.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(12:02):

And the city can come and move your sign wherever they want to move it.

Zach Goldstein

(12:05):

Exactly.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(12:07):

And so that’s kind of one of the great parts about our business model and the collaborations, uh, is that, you know, we can get through that noise and make an impact and drive eyeballs, which drives engagement, which gets people to try the food. And that’s something that most, uh, that’s something that most independent restaurants or even large chains really struggle with in the merely the virtual world.

Zach Goldstein

(12:36):

So I’m here to ask the hard questions, but I’ll give you the easy one first, which is give me the concise pitch for why an existing restaurant should view a virtual brand that uses their kitchen space as a huge opportunity for the evolution of their business. And I will ask you to follow up question, which is, and why might a restaurant brand view this as threatening to their core business, but let’s start with the pitch for why this is hugely additive for the traditional restaurants across the country.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(13:06):

Look, everybody could use more sales, right? Everybody could use more sales, especially in these days with optimizing delivery. And frankly, look, we started to VDC before the pandemic and, you know, and the pandemic has, has helped in some ways, and, and it’s caused some struggles in other ways, too, but, but look year over year. And this is one of the reasons that it was so exciting to get into the virtual space early is that, year over year delivery sales have increased, right? People are more and more ordering off of the third party apps or ordering for delivery. Uh, and so the more that you can maximize your delivery presence and at the same time maximize your excess kitchen space and everybody who’s operating knows you have excess kitchen space. And so the idea to be able to, to maximize your kitchen space, maximize your labor without impacting your capital investment, and at the same time, not really having to do anything but execute well, uh, not have to worry about the packaging, you know, because look, it’s, it’s a competitive landscape, right? And the people who take the packaging seriously and the branding seriously, and the food seriously. Look, we’re not just putting up any wing brands or any burger brands. We actually put some thought to carving out some niches and, and making sure that the brand resonates to people who, who, you know, are engaged with the celebrities that we collaborate with or, or aren’t. So for us, you know, the legwork is a significant task for a really challenging opportunity. But when you team up with a company like ours and with the expertise that we have it kind of just helps streamline that whole process. But I think that if you’re not paying attention to the revenue streams that are coming from your delivery sales, then, then you’re going to struggle in the future from a culinary perspective. You know, I was one of the first people who was an offering on Uber eats with Greenspan’s grilled cheese. It was a totally different model. We used to premake the food, and they would hold it in warmers on their cars. And it’s called Uber instant. Delivery sales at that point 2014, 2015, 10% of my sales right now, you’re seeing that restaurants are seeing, you know, you’re seeing 30, 40, 50% of your sales are delivery. So if you’re not paying attention to delivery and maximizing that, you know, in our already challenging business, it could be insurmountable

Zach Goldstein

(15:29):

Food fighters stay on the cutting edge.

Zach Goldstein

(15:33):

Why would restaurants, or why do you think restaurants are nervous about the proliferation of virtual dining? Where is the legitimate concern at the least, it’s gotta be, this is already an incredibly competitive world with very low margins. And now I’m incubating more competitors with potentially a margin advantage over me. Is that valid? Are there other things that you hear as concerns when you have these conversations?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(16:00):

I mean, look, competition is always something to be concerned about for anybody, right? At the same time, you know, the way I see it is that we kind of develop brands. Like we’re our brands aren’t designed to cannibalize your existing brands or to compete against our operators. In fact, it’s to enhance them. The beautiful thing is that you can be a burger restaurant and you can operate our torta brand. You can be a pizza restaurant and you can operate our wing brand. And so we, we do try, you know, in many ways to be able to give you an opportunity to get into a new niche that you’re not competing in to kind of help continue to be a part of and not cannibalize your own sales, but to, to generate new sales that you, that there’s absolutely zero chance that you would have been getting. Do I hear that? Do I hear and understand that, you know, people are like, oh, but you’re, you’re taking sales away from an independent burger restaurant. And I hear that, at the same time, I think we’re helping independent burger restaurants to compete in the modern marketplace. And at the same time too, we’re not doing anything that any other burger restaurant that opens isn’t taking away from, right? So, you’re going to be competing in one way or another. We give you an opportunity to kind of diversify your portfolio, to diversify your offerings, especially in a way where you may not like, look, if you own a bar and grill, you may not know how to make a great torta. I do. And I can show you how to and streamline the entire process so that I can get you into in a marketplace that you would never have been able to get into and then being able to compete in. And I think that that’s pretty powerful.

Zach Goldstein

(17:41):

Yeah. I mean, I think if I could summarize that argument, it, it maybe comes down to change happens and you better embrace, and competitors are going to come into your market one way or another. This is one flavor of them. And your point is to ride the tide, because this is a fundamental shift in the way consumers are demanding food.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(18:02):

It’s a fundamental shift in the way consumers are demanding food. It gives you an opportunity to diversify what you are doing it at the same time, too. It’s also an educational experience, right? Like, like virtually, like anybody, any restaurant in the modern, in the modern day, who’s not in the virtual concept space in one way, shape or form, whether it be with us or whether it be on their own, isn’t doing the best to maximize their sales opportunities. Right. And so not only do you get to be a part of a huge wave and a marketing experience and kind of have a soup to nuts, turnkey solution, which I think is really important to make this easy for people to operate. And it’s also educational, right? It shows you kind of the things that you need to pay attention to if you wanted to do a virtual brand of your own. And I think that that’s also important, you know, this is a new concept for a lot of people. Not everybody’s got access to my phone number to call me and say, Hey, how do I get into the virtual concept game? But now we have an opportunity to kind of bring that kind of expertise to people who wouldn’t normally have it. And at the same time, you know, get them competitive, help them diversify their offerings. And at the same time teach them kind of all of the things that you need to pay attention to make this work, because I’ll tell you it’s not enough to just have a random box and throw a sticker on it, right. It’s not enough to just repurpose what you’re selling and put it in another box and get those sales. You might get a sales boost, you know, for, for a month or two, but you’re not going to sustain the business.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(19:28):

We’re looking to create sustainable brands that satisfy niches. And that check all of the boxes that you need to succeed. Because like now, like it used to be, you would order takeout or delivery, and you didn’t really care about the packaging so much because it was like, it was a convenience, but now brands are very focused on this. And so the packaging has to be right, but the way the food delivers has to be right, and the quality of the product has to be right. If you’re going to compete in this world.

Zach Goldstein

(19:55):

Some would say, it’s not surprising that, uh, Travis Kalanick, as an example, a logistics guru got into this space because getting people, food that they want quickly, efficiently, et cetera, there is a logistics theme to it. At the end of the day, it’s more surprising to traditionalist in the restaurant space, at least that a fine dining chef jumped into this game because a traditionalist might say, if you don’t know what kitchen your food’s coming from, how can you really measure the quality of the food or ensure that you are delivering on the brand experience that you were just talking about? How do you do that? Because your food is coming out of very different kitchens with very different operators, right? And yet you’re confident that experience of the consumer is brand consistent across all of those.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(20:51):

I’m gaining confidence in that field, to be honest with you. I mean, I look at it, it’s a legitimate question. Those are champagne problems that we have. And we’re learning as we go. I mean, look, the key number one is to create brands. I try to be a detective instead of a cop, which means, you know, a cop responds to a crime and then tries to fix it. And the detective kind of anticipates it from happening and tries to stop it before it happens. Right. So when I create the brands right away, it starts with ease of execution, right. It starts with, I gotta make sure that you can execute upon what I want to do very easily, even if I never meet you. And so like, for example, with Mr. Beast Burger, the product is readily available. All people need to learn is get the products that we need. And then, it’s the smashing of the burger, the way to season the hot chicken, things like that, which are challenging, but not, you know, and they’re certainly not the techniques that I use at the Foundry on Melrose, right? So that’s the first thing is to create a brand that is easy to execute from both, you know, a technique level, uh, that still is creative enough to define its own voice in the field and to be able to get the products that you need to get, to be able to execute it correctly. And then you know, and then the challenge is you had to make sure that the training materials are clear and concise. That’s the good thing is that a lot of the people in this space are tech people and, you know, what makes our company different in many ways is because Robert was smart enough to be like, Hey, let’s get a chef involved. And not just a chef, let’s get the chef involved, who’s intrigued in the space, who knows how to do this space. And you know, and it’s going to come from, you know, I was joking with him that he puts me in a box and I fight my way out of it to make sure that it’s something that’s worth putting my stamp on. Right. Uh, and so all of these things that we kind of put into place before somebody goes live helps with creating that consistency. Are there operators that we have that are operating inconsistently? Yes. Uh, do we find them? We do, you know, we do, we do the secret shops and monitor the ratings and we check in with our partners. We have field operatives who go out and work with our market partnerships to provide them the assistance. They need to make sure that they’re, you know, able to do what they need to do. We have a couple of programs in place that before, and like, I literally see pictures from every single operation that’s about to go live before they go live. Nothing goes live without me saying you’re live. And also part of it too is kind of maintain continuing the engagement process after the launch, you know, we’re constantly live streaming and engaging with how to refine things. We’re listening to our market partners and talking to them and asking them about what their challenges are. I operate everything out of my facility in Hollywood under a false flag before we even launched. And so I have some operational experience and customer feedback, you know, so we, we learned from observing how to, you know, where the bottlenecks are and where the challenges are from my staff. And we can kind of communicate that information going on. So look, is there a challenge? Yes. When the good part is that if somebody’s not executing, just like any other restaurant chain, right, you got good operators, you’ve got bad operators within your existing field. The key is to put the systems in place, to set people up for success, to be able to help, you know, catch problems that they have and help solve them.

Zach Goldstein

(24:27):

And correct quickly really that’s the key at the end of the day.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(24:31):

A hundred percent, correct quickly. And the good news is that like, look, the independent operators that we work with, in many ways, see participating with us as a lifeline, right. Especially these days. So the level of engagement and the desire to want to make this thing work, like we’re not forcing this on anybody, they’re choosing to do this. And so in some ways we get more quality and engagement from our operators and even a chain restaurant where, because for a chain restaurant, I’m like, okay, this is my job. But when we’re working with these independent restaurants, it’s their livelihood. And so they do take it seriously, and they do have that attention to detail that we ask of them. The reality is, man, we’re learning as we go, luckily enough, as an operator, as a business, as a company, you know, we’re all quite entrepreneurial. We understand and speak the voice of our operators. Because we’ve all been there before. I’ve run quick serve restaurants, I’ve run ghost kitchens. I know exactly what these people are going through. Uh, and so there’s that level of comfort and knowledge and that we speak their language and understand what they’re going through. And so we can provide that help really quickly. And because of that spirit of entrepreneurship that Robert brings to the company, despite the size and scope of his many operations, we are able to pivot very perfectly, and empowered to pivot very quickly to be able to solve it. I mean, look, let’s be honest, Mr. Beast burger, have you ever heard of a restaurant chain that’s grown to 900 units in three months that sold a million cheeseburgers in five weeks. Like these are numbers that, you know, this has never been done before.

Zach Goldstein

(26:16):

Right? Unheard of.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(26:18):

It’s unheard of. I think sometimes I think sometimes we’re almost numb to that. Right. We don’t, we sit back and be like, wow, like this is like, we’ve done. What takes people 30 years? And we’ve compressed it into three months.

Zach Goldstein

(26:31):

Well, one of the things that’s interesting about what you just said, actually the world of restaurants, especially, you know, at the Michelin star level over the last 10 years has been equal parts, art and science, the modernist techniques of multiplication and foams and all the things that we’ve seen into the highest ends of fine dining.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(26:52):

I worked with, I worked at El Bulli too.

Zach Goldstein

(26:55):

Exactly, technical innovation at the highest ends of restaurants. What’s interesting to me. And, and I think lost when talking about virtual brands is there is a similar technical innovation you’re quoted as saying the winner of this delivery game’s going to be the guy who gets you a better product delivered to your house, not the better product coming out of his window. What’s the R&D going into the technology of getting the best quality food to your home, which is a completely different experience. And increasingly a new area of quote, unquote science in food.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(27:33):

You know, it’s fun because we get to draw some pretty old school. Like we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re just kind of, we’re just kind of reshaping it and putting it on a different car, you know? And so there’s a lot of common sense kind of it’s a lot of the problems are solved merely from looking at it with that perspective because our brands are only delivery. We have our strength is that we only have to create food that delivers well, we don’t have to create food that eats, that is at its prime, when right when it comes off of the griddle. And so there’s adjustments that can be made and the thought process from the very beginning that goes into the food is knowing that it’s going to be delivered to you. It’s not, Hey, here’s my food. Oh, okay. But now I’m going to put that through the box and send it to you for 30 minutes. If in fact you want that when you’re never going to get the great experience, I’ve never tasted food since I’ve been in the virtual game, I don’t ever taste the food off the griddle. I pack it and let it sit for 20 minutes before I even attempt to see, Hey, how is this, how does this taste, you know, so, so part of it is kind of being ahead of the game, in that sense, like knowing that your food is going to be delivered, uh, helps you kind of think through the techniques. And then there’s, you know, we play around with packaging and figuring out what packaging makes the best delivery. Where do you put your vent holes? How compact do you want your space within your boxes to pay attention to that sort of thing? Um, you know, what product delivers well and holds up well and things like that. But no, it’s not, it’s not like we’re sitting here with lab coats. I mean, we’re playing with thermometers and testing, things like that. But a lot of it is, comes down to the, kind of the technique that you executed. And the fact that when you know that your food is only going to be delivering and you can optimize for delivery, as opposed to somebody whose brick and mortar, is not optimized for delivery and can never optimize for delivery because you have to optimize for your core. And sometimes that has a significantly negative effect on what happens when your food comes to, you know, 40 minutes later.

Zach Goldstein

(29:43):

Yeah. I mean, that’s really interesting complexity that the same item, if you’re a brick and mortar restaurant, the same item is brought to a table versus shipped out via delivery probably has to be cooked and prepared differently. And it’s already complex enough in the kitchen of a restaurant to take the same item and have to figure out where it’s going to and how you need to change it. That’s really hard.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(30:06):

Yeah. You can’t run a brick and mortar restaurant and be like, all right, fire the burger for delivery and find the burger for not delivery. You can’t do that. We don’t have to do that. We are only firing the burger for delivery and it does. And again, that’s what we do. I applaud that people who do what they do, I have been those people, I intend to be those people, you know, and to maximize how that food tastes at impact, at the point of impact. But because we’re singularly focused in delivery, it gives us a step up in many ways. I mean, like, there’s a reason why we did a Smash burger. It travels.

Zach Goldstein

(30:49):

Well, now Mr. Beast burgers growth, as you said, is unprecedented in the industry. So I’m going to ask you with my last question, to look into your crystal ball. We’re still in the early innings of virtual concepts and virtual brands what’s going to happen for the, the next thing that makes even Mr. Beast burgers growth looks small. What do you see happening in this space? And what’s going to emerge that will just be the next step function for virtual concepts?

Chef Eric Greenspan

(31:21):

You know, I think that finding brands that resonate is always going to be the key, right, for me, at least my role in this company and my role in life, and what always intrigues me is the brand and making a strong brand and what they strong brand that resonates from food to packaging to, to message to collaboration. If that’s part of it, right, is what’s going to win the day regardless. And I think that that’s what we’re experiencing with, with most of our brands, but especially with Mr. Beast, you know, what’s exciting for me is as we are building this network of partners, that gives us the opportunities to be national from the very beginning. And there’s a lot of different, fun things I think coming down the pipes that you can, that you can use that for. That’s what I think is really impressive about what we’ve done is that we’ve created this network of operators across the country so that we can, you know, we can pivot so quickly to introduce new products to a national marketplace. And that’s really exciting to me.

Zach Goldstein

(32:38):

It is you were looking into your crystal ball in 2018 and couldn’t have had any clue of what 2020 would bring with COVID, but right place, right time and an amazing success story in the growth of these brands that you’ve built. So chef it was wonderful chatting with you. Thanks for joining us on food fighters. Excited to see what’s coming next.

Chef Eric Greenspan

(33:01):

And I’m looking forward to coming back and talking about it.

Zach Goldstein

(33:06):

You’ve been listening to Food Fighters with me, Zach Goldstein. To subscribe to the podcast or to learn more about our featured guest 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.