Defining Hospitality

DH - Shawn Walchef
===

Speaker: [00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan, and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Fall Hospitality Group, a design-driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Today's guest is a wearer of many hats from entrepreneur to consultant to Creative Innovator. He's a content creator for both Toast and Entrepreneur Media specializing in advertising, media strategy, branding and more. He is the podcast host of restaurant influencers and digital hospitality and founder of Cali BB Q Media, which helps hospitality brands tell better stories online.

He's the owner of Cali [00:01:00] BB Q, which are award-winning restaurants in the San Diego area. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Shawn Walchef. Thank you, Shawn. Welcome.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Me, Dan, excited for today's show.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Uh, I am too, and one of the things that I was most intrigued about speaking to you about is you've created these amazing taco places, which full disclosure I have not eaten at yet, but I'm in San Diego usually once a year, so I definitely will go. On my next trip, but I've heard great things. But not only are you doing these great, like the, these, this great and amazing barbecue, but you've also created like a, like a media empire if you will.

And what came first, the drive to like create media platform or great barbecue? Or did it all kind of happen at the same time?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: well, it definitely didn't happen at the same time, we like to say that we make our media, like we make our barbecue, and that's low and slow.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: the craft of making barbecue is painstaking [00:02:00] of making a lot of mistakes and learning how to properly cook barbecue, especially in San Diego on the West coast. Um, and media is the same way. It took us a long time to learn how to a podcast, launch our own show, launch

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: shows, start to do shows for different brands. And, um, you know, now here we are, 17 years later and I feel like we're kind of just getting started.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. And I wanna dig into a bunch of those things. But before we get into that, um, hospitality is the thread that weaves these, these two things together in your life. Oh, three things. Your life, your media platform and your barbecue award-winning barbecue restaurants. Like how do you, like, what does hospitality mean to you and what was the driving, how, how did hospitality push you into doing these really awesome and creative things?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Hospitality is kindness to a stranger. It's turning a stranger into a friend. you get down to the core of what makes you, [00:03:00] and me and everyone that has hospitality in their DNA is that we're curious people, we're curious people and we're caretakers. We want to learn about people. We want to see what they see, see what they've learned, hear what they've learned about. Help them in wherever they've been. I mean, I, you know, obviously the Canterbury Tales, um, was one of the first, you know, books that I remember reading about the, the all walks of life, all walks of life stopping in at the village. And when you think of, it doesn't matter if you're in a big city, if you're in a small city, no matter where you were on earth, um, we wanna be welcomed. And there's a fear when you don't know, when you go into the unknown, when you go to a new place, you, you have a fear of being welcomed. And I think the beauty of the hospitality business is our job is to welcome people every single day. People that have been coming for years, for generations, people that are new. And that is, that is the craft, that is the [00:04:00] skill. And the better that we get at that craft, the deeper the connections we make, both at our restaurants in real life, um, in our community, but also online. I mean, that's why we love media storytelling and technology because we have the ability, you and I, to create a podcast and put it on YouTube and Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

And that doesn't mean that millions of people are gonna listen. What if one person listens to this, and what if one person goes, wow, that's really cool. I would love to do that. Or I'd love to learn more. Or even better, you know, when I first started podcasting in 2017, I remember people going, why would you own barbecue restaurants?

Why are you podcasting? It's not like you're gonna get a bunch of people coming in to buy barbecue. irony is, the deepest connections that I have, they will fly whenever they're in San Diego. The first place that they go is to our restaurant in Spring Valley

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: of the podcast.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: You know, that's what I don't know. You've, I've heard, I've been listening to a podcast, I think since the [00:05:00] podcast started, and I think I'm coming up on four. I know now. I think I know, I know. I'm coming up on four years. Um. I've been a hardcore listener and fan of podcasts for so long, and what I love about it and what I love, what you've scratched out right there is I've been reading in the media or hearing in the media that, you know, this is the year of the podcast.

Like in the election this year, like

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Of course.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: the people who did well submitted themselves to these like long form, kind of have a beer with 'em conversations, and I think the podcast has been around like, I think the year of the podcast was well before this and will continue well after, but it's so tailored to, I think that anyone, I think everyone should have a podcast because even if, if, if five people listen, it's not like it's they're, they're listening because they want to, they're listening because, and it's, it's so easy to build an.

An audience where you can impact and inspire and, and have people think differently [00:06:00] about the journey that they're on. And to me it's so easy to, well, nothing is easy, but like, it, it is really easy in, in effect to start up a podcast. And you don't need like fancy microphones or really crazy software or a studio or whatever.

You really can just do it with your iPhone. And it's like, and I don't think we've really figured this out, but even if you look at, you know, I have so many friends up in Hollywood, and I've heard Hollywood referenced recently is, uh, it's Detroit just with nicer weather, right? And, um, just because of film and tv, everything is coming, everything is being produced vertically on this and it, and we can be in everyone's pockets.

Instantaneously, and I don't know, it's just, it's an amazing platform. So you started in 2017, which is pretty early. Like what, what prompted you, like what was that, uh, synthesis to, to start and how did you do it? What was your, what was your kit, so to speak?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So, I mean, I think, you know, it's always important for me to go back to, uh, to my [00:07:00] grandfather. My grandfather. He raised me. I never met my father. Um, he was a Bulgarian farm boy that, uh, read every single book in the village. He was able to leave his village even though he was destined to be a farm boy. Um,

Bulgarian?

Yes.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Can I tell you something really funny? I'm sorry.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You can, no, you interrupt. This is a conversation.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. One of my, one of my guests, Rado, uh, he works at Marriott in dc He is Bulgarian. And at one point I was looking at the ranking things. I was number one in Bulgaria after the podcast one because, and I was joking with him, it's because like his mom listened to the podcast.

But that's the other thing about these podcasts.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: It's a global reach. It's amazing. And then on, on your grandfather part, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this just happened this morning. My daughter came home. She's studying the Cold War,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Mm-hmm.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: So she's on YouTube and she's got her books. I think she does a test later today.

And I just went in, I said, you know what my, you know what my YouTube was. I grew up with my great-grandmother. Her boyfriend, my [00:08:00] grandmother, and my mom and dad. And if I ever was doing a report on the 20th century, I would just go into the garage and walk upstairs and I'd ask them, Hey, what was this whole great depression thing about?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: they'd have all these incredible stories and, but it was just such a great way to learn. And I, I'm, it's cool that you were raised by your grandfather because most people in the United States, anyway, it's not, there's, we all miss that multi-generational aspect, and I think I, I really appreciate having grown up in that household despite its insanity.

But, um, there is this, I think, um, connection to the past that is really, uh, missing and, and can be so impactful. Um, and it was for me, and I'm, I'm so happy I did that. But thank you for triggering these two memories. But carry on with your, with your grandfather.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: The, uh, roots are important and tradition's important. Um, you know, my grandfather, he taught me. To stay curious, to get involved to ask for help. was the most curious man [00:09:00] I've ever met. He, like I said, he became, eventually became a medical doctor. He became, uh, a real estate developer.

Never stopped working, never stopped learning. Um, but I remember growing up, he would always ask me, Shawn, are you sitting in front of the class? I was like, no, grandpa. You know, I'm, I'm hanging out with my friends, you know, my friends are in the back of the class. And he kept asking me, you know, as I got older in middle school, he would ask me high school.

And, you know, the answer was always the same. And I never understood why he was so obsessed with me sitting in the front of the class. Um, it had to do with curiosity,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: remember later on in his life when I started helping write his life memoir together, um, we self-published his book, uh, the Harvest, how A Bulgarian Farm Boy Grew Wealthy in La Jolla, California. And I remember traveling throughout western Europe all the way to Eastern Europe, um, with him. And I remember sitting on tour buses he would always sit in the front, and it wasn't because he couldn't hear or he didn't wanna see it was because he wanted to be next to the information.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: [00:10:00] Yes.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: always wanted to pick up the pamphlet.

So we would go to the hotel and he would pick up the pamphlet, and I'm like, why are you getting the pamphlet? It's just an advertisement. He's like, you have no idea what kind of magic can be in this city that we're in.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: He was obsessed with always learning, always asking questions, and he didn't care who it was.

It could be the tour guide, it could be the security guard, all walks of life. He didn't discriminate where he would get information. He would always ask all these questions. And, um, for me, that's inspirational. It's inspirational and it's, it's a true gift that you have as a podcaster is that we're forced to ask questions and the better question that we ask, better answer we get, not only for ourselves, but also for our audience.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: So I appreciate that so much. And I know that anytime I ever struggled in school, I would always, the first thing I would do is move myself to the front row. 'cause then I, there's no distraction. And then I'll bring up my other daughter. So we moved to Connecticut in the, OR very early in the pandemic. I was like, [00:11:00] I'm not sticking around in this apartment with my wife, my dog, and three children, three roommates, four roommates in a sense, and a dog.

So we came up to Connecticut and then, I don't know, a couple years ago I was talking to my youngest daughter and she's, I said, do you miss New York? And she goes, you know, yeah, I miss it. You know what I miss the most? I miss how we would be walking places, dad, and you would just talk to random people on the street.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: feel like everyone does have a story to tell and you know, it's not like I'm intruding in their space. You can, you know, you can tell when someone is open to a conversation and I would just have incredible, um, uh. Conversations with so many people, with so many different walks of life, and I love sitting next to the tour guide to the bus driver because then I can get, I can ask all those other questions that I never, that I, that I always want to, but I can't ask when I'm in the back of the bus.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah, I mean that, that is, uh, you know, curiosity will lead you to the front of the class. It will make you stay afterwards. It'll make you go to a conference, read a [00:12:00] book, listen to a podcast, but then you actually have to do something with it,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you know, and that's the get involved part is my grandfather, he was always obsessed with trying things out.

He had no problem with failing. He had no problem with trying something new, learning something new. I mean, he was a medical doctor that became a real estate developer when he was 65 years old,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: years old. He was the oldest one in the class learning about real estate, getting his license, um, you know, building his, his empire. And that's something that even to this day, I think about. We can't be afraid of new technology. We can't be afraid of evolving from a restaurant into a media company. Like the things that we're doing now at our restaurant media company are not being done anywhere else. There is no blueprint, there's no one that's, you know, done it before that's gotten brand deals with Pepsi and Uber and Coca-Cola and, uh, all these different companies that we've been, we've done work with. I mean, we've worked with Google. I mean, that's crazy. You know, we're, [00:13:00] we're gonna be published by, you know, Google Small business. We've, um, done stuff with Walmart for business. The only reason that we've done that is because we're obsessed with. Trying things, staying curious, but then trying them out.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: know, that first podcast that we did, we started in 2017.

It wasn't until 20 22, 5 years of investing my time, my money, my effort, restaurant money, our resources, until we finally started making our first brand deal, our first sponsorship. I mean, most people quit before they get to 10 episodes of podcast.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: well that's what, that's something that's interesting is that you read, or I don't know if you read, I read that there's three and a half million podcasts out there, maybe 3.6 now I don't, I haven't checked in a while, but most of them stop in that three and a half million number stop after 10 episodes.

So I don't know actually how many there are. Um, but what's interesting is the, the people who make the most money doing podcasts, like, I'm not doing [00:14:00] this for the, for the money. I do it 'cause I really love it. And it's a great way to end. You can, um, it, it opens up other opportunities, so I won't discount that.

Um, but most people just give up except, and even the people like you, I, well you're probably more successful with your podcast than I am, but like. I love doing it so much. It really lights up my week. You hear that the people that really make money are, are the ones that are in the 0.00 0.02% or something.

It's like, it's, it's like it's very hard to do it. But that, that, but that's the cool thing if you're into teaching and learning and impacting to like teaching learning impact. If you were to make a Venn diagram, for me, that's the podcast and, um, I don't know. I, I, I love it. What are your thoughts on like the vast sea of podcasts that are out there and then developing an audience?

Like, I love that story of five years of just trying and then finally, you know, [00:15:00] you learn who your audience is and you speak to them and you grow like te tell me about that.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So, uh, we've done lots of shows, thousands of shows. Um, I had a guest on and I was explaining who we are and what we do and why we do it. And he said, you know what, Shawn? You're

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: good at starting a flash mob. I said, what are you talking about? That's how you start a community. How do you start a flash mob?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You have to be willing to be the crazy person

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: hears the music that no one else hears. And you start dancing the town square. You're the only one. No one's listening. No one's watching. Everyone's making fun of you. Until one other person starts dancing with you. your first listener, your first follower, the first person that goes, Dan, I believe in you. I love what you're doing.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: it. two people are dancing. Two people become four people, and all of a sudden, if you keep that consistency [00:16:00] and you're willing to do the work, and you're willing to speak your truth, and you get better at your craft, all of a sudden you've started a movement and people start to recognize you at trade shows.

They start to recognize you. When you show up, they start to make introductions. Hey, you gotta meet Dan. He's got a great show. This is what he does. This is also what he does. of those things, they happen because you have the courage to look stupid and sound stupid in the beginning because that's, that's the the fear that we have as humans goes back to that number one human fear, which is speaking in public.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: would rather be in a coffin than give a eulogy at a funeral.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That is the fact,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Mm,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: now that speaking in public is speaking to the internet.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: totally.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: don't like, people don't like how they sound on a voicemail, let alone how they sound on a podcast.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I love the idea of the flashlight because really what you're doing is you're kind of putting out a vibe or a vibration, right? And so there's this wave going through and other people can catch the wave or not. Right? And, um, I keep thinking about, okay, the, I've, I've built this [00:17:00] podcast.

Kind of audience, community and then what's next? And um, to me, I think for what I do, which is furnishing hotels, it's such a niche world, this ho hospitality design thing. But it's cool. It's really awesome. It's passionate. Most people don't even know it exists, right?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: um, so I'm thinking like, what can I do next?

And I'm kind of, I'm toying with the idea and I have been for quite some time, but I just can't quite seem to line everything up where imagine five or 10 Jeffersonian, like dinner type things, like throughout the country or throughout North America. I'd say, ah, it could be global of pa of past podcast guests.

So I could get like a good mix of like maybe owners or designers or branding people or whatever. So like we're all there. And then we have a theme.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: it could be, uh, navigating change, and I've done some of these before in the pandemic. Um, but to have a chef, to have a private space where everyone could be a [00:18:00] little bit vulnerable and learn from each other, right?

So it could be, uh, courage. Like what, when was the time that you had to really dig into your courage to face a difficult situation? And everyone go. And then maybe there's a follow on in six months or a year where everyone comes and I want it to be low hanging, like in the city where the guests are from, or really close.

'cause you know, there's so many other things, but I, I look at it, this funnel, like we have these trade shows. They're so many people. And I came up with this metaphor of like, it's hard to have any deep, meaningful conversation there. It's like a stone skipping across a pond. And that that is what it is.

That's what it's for. I get it. But it's like, it's exhausting. But I also, I like these kind of things. Then you go down, you have these leadership things, which, which are smaller other learning events outside of the industry. But to go down and be even more niche in my niche world of bringing really cool people together and providing a space where everyone can be a little bit vulnerable and learn from each other, um, [00:19:00] I think that that could be really cool and also build relationships amongst each other.

Um, what are your thoughts on that?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I'm, I, I love local. Um, I love, so I'm part of, uh, the Toast Customer Advisory Board. Um, we switched our restaurants from a legacy point of sale system to a cloud voice point of system called toast. Um, what Toast does on this customer advisory board is they get owners. They select owners, uh, about 25 from all over the country, different concepts, different scale, different profitability, and they bring them out once a quarter to Boston.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: to their headquarters. This is a very small, intimate niche group of people that get together with a purpose. So we go and we see new products that TOAST is launching, importantly. We talk about the things that are top of mind for us, hopes, our fears, the things that are working, the things that aren't working. [00:20:00] And there's a magic that happens in that small, intimate setting. There's this collision of ideas where true friendship happens and true growth happens. And actually the more vulnerable that each other are with where they are in their business and their personal life, actually, the more that we take away from those gatherings,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh yeah. Because running a business, like most people that go there, they're like, oh, this is so easy. I'm like walking on air. Like all my people are great. They show up on time. My food.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you're not

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You know, I mean, it's, uh, you know, the restaurant business, hospitality, business, entrepreneurship, it's, hard because you are the one that is on the battlefield every single day. You know, sending out the emails, hoping to get the sale, hoping to get the new client, um. the only one,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: go and you see someone else that's either same as you or further along, or maybe even behind you in the journey, you realize like, oh wow, we're all trying to figure this thing out called sales and marketing and [00:21:00] business development.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: That's also why I'm a huge proponent of entrepreneurs, organization or other organizations like YPO, because it's really, in essence what it is. It's a support group for entrepreneurs. There's no set playbook. There's lots of different systems and processes you can follow to run a business, but you're dealing with all this incoming, but we're all dealing with the same work stuff, personal stuff, family stuff, and to really focus on becoming a well-rounded.

Human and entrepreneur, it, it really takes that level of vulnerability to share. 'cause I guarantee you, someone's never been in the exact same position as you, but they've rhymed with you before. And they can share their experience that's not from that exact spot of pain, um, or challenge. But if they get close enough, and when you're in a community that if you have an issue that you're sharing with a bunch of people, again, that Venn diagram image comes up where everyone is, they [00:22:00] share and the spectrum comes up.

And then it's like, no one's telling me what I need to do. I'm hearing from other people's experience and it's kind of filling in the blanks on that blind spot. And I'm like, oh, okay, well I haven't considered that. Let's try that. And it's like all of these pro, I don't know, elements of iteration. And then I've, I've been saying now recently because I'm dealing with all this tariff bullshit, but like business is hard enough and it's like the government.

It doesn't make, make it any easier by throwing us all of these curve balls, and we'll always overcome them,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: but it's like, give us some, some stability or like, let us plan and, and allocate our capital and resources. And I don't know, it's just, it's a really frustrating time with me. But, but it's also a time when, like that group that you're in, or EO or YPO, it's really critical now that we all get together and share because especially in this world where we are impacted by tariffs, um, we just need, it's, it's changing on a [00:23:00] daily basis and we need to be able to share openly, um, and honestly without a mask on.

And to me, taking the mask off is the best thing. And you only can do that when you're in like a safe thing and you state this is confidential, not to be shared from here. Almost like, what is that? Like a Chatham Chatham House rules or something like that and some Jeff. So I don't know. I'm a, I'm a huge fan of it.

I have a question on toast.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep. Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And actually not toast specifically, but pss

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: and tipping.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Mm-hmm.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: So I love tipping, I think hospitality, um, and many of those interactions, whether it's a bus driver or a shuttle driver or a beman or a housekeeper, you tip. And I find with housekeepers, it's not just leaving a tip, it's writing a little note like, thank you, you made my stay better.

Like that really impacts, it's lifting where you stand. It, it leaves a really good impression. But I do find with these point of sales where, you know, they're, they type it up, then it comes to you and it's like a coffee shop and it starts [00:24:00] with like a 25 or 22% tip and goes up to 28%. I al it makes me feel bad and I feel like they're, like they're abusing that getting and giving hospitality or the owners of the shops are not paying their people enough.

I don't know. It's probably a combination of the two, but. What are your thoughts on that? And like, does that come up in these toast or other POS um, meetings? I'm just really curious about how people are navigating it.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Well, it's, it's quite, it's, it's certainly from a consumer standpoint, um, frustrating and I can share just from my own experiences, it is frustrating depending on the type of service

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: or hospitality that you're provided, um, to be able to see something that's, I mean, first of all, the scale, right? It's like if you're going and you're. Getting a sandwich made in front of you at Subway and you're telling them what to put on it, and then they're asking for a 25% tip. I think that that's a little bit [00:25:00] egregious.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Um, does that mean that the sandwich person at Subway doesn't deserve a tip? No, that doesn't mean that. But the preset tips, I think is an issue. Um, and the service type is an issue. So if you go to a fine dining restaurant, it's obviously a lot different experience than if you're going and grabbing a slice of pizza from a counter.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: A lot of it has changed because of the digital tipping environment. To your point, um, people are getting much more comfortable using technology, using their phone, using Apple Pay, um, preset spending limits.

I think as people have fatigue, I mean, we see it on the internet all the time and people just, you know, there's all different weird places where you would never expect and you've never tipped that people are asking for, you know, 18%, 20%, 22%. And what, what do we do? I mean, all we can do as business owners is make the own, make our decision for ourselves,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you know, that we need to make sure, and toast allows us to put any, any kind of, uh, [00:26:00] or, um, optional tipping, um, on, on our guest checks.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: So that, oh, so that's interesting. So it's not a preset field from Toast, the owner has say

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: the

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: in that. Oh, weird. So maybe that maybe many owners are using that as a way to. Pay their employees less.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So a lot of them, the, I mean, it, it all depends on the service type. It all depends on, you know, if it's, you know, where, where it is and where. Um, some of it can be pre templated, but all of it is customizable, at least in toast.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. Well, and and on the flip side of that coin, I'm sure, I don't know if you're like me, but I rarely have cash on me anymore. And then when there is the bellman or whatever and I don't have cash on me, then I'm like, Hey, can I have your Apple Pay or whatever. And sometimes they can't give it out. I'm sure there's like tax reasons or something, but there should be an easy way to scan a QR code or something and do that.

And I do see some technologies coming up in that department. Usually what I say, if I'm staying somewhere, I say, oh, I don't have anything right now. I'll get [00:27:00] you on the flip side. And then, um, it's all, all good. But I, I, I always let them know 'cause I don't want them to resent me. That I'll, I'll be back and I'll make it right.

Are you seeing any cool tipping technologies? Um, just on the out and about kind of play?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Uh, I mean, we work with a company called Kick Fin. Um, kick Fin's an amazing company that helps, uh, daily tips. So it actually allows the restaurant, um, bar or hotel to tip out daily to their staff. So, um, it's something that less and less restaurants staff, hospitality businesses, f and b places have cash on hand, so sometimes they have a negative cash balance because of the tip.

At

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: of the night, you have to pay out the bartender, the servers.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: All right.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: this allows a digital tip transaction to go directly to the servers bank account immediately

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh, cool.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: of the night. Yeah.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Huh? Um, okay. One thing you [00:28:00] said early in the conversation, and I don't know exactly how you said it, you'll, you said it much more elegantly than I'll regurgitate, but it was, um, time having a role in barbecue.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yes.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And a former guest who's also a really good friend of mine. We were just speaking at, uh, Penn State University together.

We did a nice little road trip out there at their hospitality school, he said a long time ago. 'cause he, this, this is Craig Kian and he's in New Jersey, but he has, he's an architect, a designer, a restaurateur, um, a developer. Like he's an entrepreneur to the nth degree in all things. And he's, he's really awesome.

But in his restaurants, his recipes, um, he says The most important ingredient is time. And I can, Ima like the best barbecue I've ever had. You know, it's been smoking or slow cooking or whatever for hours. Days. How do you take that idea of time and apply it to not only your barbecue, but [00:29:00] also um, your media platforms?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yes. Time is fascinating to me because. that I want in life as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, I want to be the hare, the rabbit in the race. I want to be the one that's the, the unicorn business that we scaled so quickly. We grew sales so fast, record breaking sales, record breaking new locations. But the more that I do it, the more I realize why it's better to be the tortoise to show up single day and do the work and get 1% better. And realize that over time, the longer time horizon will always win.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: these, arbitrary, I need to do this by the end of the year. I need to hit this sales goal by the end of the year. some of it's, it's just so arbitrary to think. And if I go back and I think when I first started our restaurant that I would have three restaurants or [00:30:00] that we would be, you know, having a media company that's almost gonna surpass our media sales eventually will surpass next year hopefully, or maybe it's gonna take longer, will surpass my media, uh, my restaurant sales.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's a crazy thing to think, but I would've never have known that back in 2008.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: But I put one foot in front of the other. And, you know, when we started podcasting, we started our, our, our second show. We produced nine shows internally. Our own shows nine long form pieces of content every single week.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's not including the other 13

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: But,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: for

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: but, but the, but you're, are you on the microphone for all nine of those?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: of those, yes.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh wow. Okay. So you have a really, that, what that tells me is you have an incredible team running your restaurants.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: 100% incredible team running my restaurants and my media company.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: You wouldn't have been able to be on all nine of those, and now 10 if you can count this one,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: um, [00:31:00] without investing so heavily for so many years. Not just in, like monetarily in your team, but also just coaching and development and like, and acting as a mentor.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And that's all time.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: it's all time. And the interesting thing, uh, about time is that we also believe in speed.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: We believe in speed in the fact that the faster that we do it, the faster we can fail and the faster we can learn.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: And we feel like speed is such a competitive advantage. If done over time.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So if you are doing things quickly on a daily basis and you do them for a long enough time horizon, you will get to the thing that you want, which is the quality, the skill, the craft, and whether that's barbecue, whether that's media, whether that's podcasting, whether that's social media, whether that's blogs, websites, whatever you're trying to accomplish, you have to [00:32:00] do it with violent speed

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Uh,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: waits.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: yeah, I would say,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: is analyzing

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: okay. A couple things on that one. So let's on the waiting, I'll get to the waiting in a second, but on that long time horizon and doing and crafting and like really perfecting it, I think that that's where 80 to 90%, I think that's where 85 to 95% of luck comes from, right. Luck does happen as luck.

You win the lottery, whatever. But most people who are really lucky and you look at all these tech bros and everybody else, like most they, yes, they worked hard, they're super smart, they do all this stuff, but they also were born at a time when like all of these, that enabled them to jump on this wave of all of these big.

Um, tech companies and technology just, I don't know, crashing into shore and they were able to surf 'em in. Right. And I think a lot of that comes from, uh, Malcolm was that Malcolm [00:33:00] Gladwell and he wrote that, uh, where you work for, I don't even know what the name of the book is anymore, but it's 10,000 hours you to become an expert Tipping Point.

Yeah. So then, and then in that, actually I think one of the premises of that book too was that, okay, all these people are, even the Beatles, like, okay, they did, they became experts at their craft by playing in some shitty bar in Germany, but over and over and over. But they were also at a time when like the music industry and radio and like mass media started happening.

So they were also just like super lucky at that time too. So, and when I say, when people hear the word luck often, I don't want to discount all of the hard work and everything that they did to get there.

So there's all these books on scaling a business and Grow, grow, grow, grow, 10 x this. And you know, I imploded incredibly in, uh, 2019 and I'm so lucky I imploded when I imploded. Um, but I was able [00:34:00] to pivot before everyone was pivoting during Covid. And I merged with another company, became a partner in there, and it all worked out great.

Um, I'm actually one of the luckiest human beings in the world because of that. And then Covid happened, but again, it wouldn't have happened without 20 years of just grinding and building relationships and all this. But in reading all those books and drinking all this entrepreneurial Kool-Aid sometime in the pandemic, I read this book.

I gotta have this guy on the podcast 'cause I talk about him all the time. His name's Bo Burlingame. He wrote this book called Small Giants, and basically it's the opposite of the scale, scale, scale. It's, and he takes a bunch of case studies, like, you know, that, um, singer songwriter Annie DeFranco, she's in Buffalo.

She has a rec, uh, like a, a record album there. And she, they could've ex scaled and, uh, I don't know, built studios everywhere and had distribution everywhere. But she wanted to stay really focused on Buffalo. [00:35:00] Um, I don't know, there were like 10 K. There was some company that only makes taillights or for high lows for like forklifts, and they just wanted to be the best at that one thing.

And I don't know, it's, it's a pretty big book, but it gives all these examples. And I wish that someone had given me the gift of that book early in my entrepreneurial journey to say like, look, don't scale for the sake of scale. Like,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: take your time, stew, your entrepreneurial. Smoke your entrepreneurial like intuition and, and, and creativity, but just like keep it small and like have a laboratory there and like there's a power in being a small giant.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I agree. Uh, I think that's a great, a great analogy and it's something that when you look at modern media, we celebrate the unicorns, we celebrate the IPOs, we celebrate, you know, the people on Forbes Magazine and the people on Entrepreneur magazine. But, um, there is [00:36:00] magic in a thousand true fans.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You know, if you have a thousand true fans, you've got something pretty magical that 99.9% of the world and business leaders don't have.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: okay, so now in Go, let's go to the thousand True Fans, um, in your media platforms. So how many different companies. Outside of your own do you work with on your platforms? Okay, so 23 companies. And how do you, how do you find them? What's what? Like, walk us if, if there's anyone out there that's thinking of starting something, like walk us through the process.

Like, okay, they have an idea, or maybe they're doing it. Like what's the ideal inbound for you?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Uh, I mean the, the best thing about doing content and, obsessing over omnichannel digital storytelling is that. 90% of our business is inbound through a [00:37:00] direct message. So someone will listen to a podcast, send me an email, send me a direct message on LinkedIn, um, send me a message on Instagram based off of some content, um, that we've had. they've seen it multiple times, maybe the piece of content spoke to them. Um, you know, we've, we're getting ready to go to the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. We do a lot of collaboration there. So we work with all different types of brands, from startup companies to publicly traded ones where we do videos, customer testimonial videos, founder videos, um, podcasts. Uh, we help brands with YouTube channels. We help them launch their own podcast. we help them get on other shows.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: of that work stemmed from us. Believing that every business needs to be their own media business.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Agreed.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: media is never been easier and never been more difficult So

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: [00:38:00] lots of really incredible marketers that work for brands that need help.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you know, when you think about the marketing demands on a small business, let's look at one restaurant. need to have a website. They need to have a Facebook page. They need to have an Instagram account. They need to have a TikTok account. They need to do email marketing. They need to create flyers.

They need to update their Google business profile. They need to update their you Yelp page. So many different demands. Plus they've gotta do the schedule, plus they've gotta order the food, plus they've gotta do inventory, plus they gotta get to the bank, plus they gotta fix the broken ice machine,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And pay out their tips.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: and pay out their tips.

All of these things happen just for a small independent restaurant,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: but. part is that it doesn't matter the size and scope of any business. Every single business needs a LinkedIn page. Every single business needs a YouTube page. Do you know how many businesses have YouTube pages?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: less than 1%. I, I it [00:39:00] because it does seem so daunting, but I I, someone once told me a long time ago, this is actually the, the genesis of me doing the podcast was I was blogging a lot. 'cause someone I went to some conference, they're like, everyone needs to be their own public publishing company or, or media company.

So I was like, all right, I'm gonna commit to 18 months to writing these blog posts. I like writing, I like research. I, and, but it also was like a bit of a slog. And then when the pandemic happened, I was like, you know, I, I got asked by some people if I, someone didn't show up, can you interview this person on this organization, uh, independent lodging congress?

And I said, yeah, I'll do it. And then I got a lot of really good feedback from a bunch of people, like more than just, oh, that was great. Good job. But it was like, they took me aside to like, stop, like, you gotta do something with this. You're you, you're just very good with interviewing people. And then this light went off.

I was like, oh my God. I could basically just interview people. I love listening to podcasts. And then I can, in essence, plagiarize myself. So I've created [00:40:00] this platform. It's not as hard, it's more enjoyable. I'm like, instead of in my own head trying to come up with something, I'm learning from people like you, uh, Shawn.

And, um, I don't know. It, it just was great. But I think a lot of people, that's my long way of saying, if you say every business should have a YouTube channel, they're like, oh my god, that's film crews. That's like scripting and production. And I can barely like, make payroll right now 'cause it's slow and blah, blah.

And like, people don't have time for it. So it's almost like you're an easy button for, okay, so I give you an inbound. I was like, I, I, I'm running a business. I'm 90 per, 95% of my time is fully committed. I don't have time for this, but like, I believe in what you're saying.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: easy button solution here?

Like how do you take my hand and walk me through it?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah, I mean, the easy button solution is we, we believe to be the show, not the commercial. The problem that most brands have when they thinking about advertising or [00:41:00] marketing on the internet is they think about, how do I get a sale? How do I directly attribute what this content, what's the content ROI? And the problem is nobody wants to watch a commercial.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Right.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: about my, my, my son when he, uh, was

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: How old is he?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: a young boy. He's seven now. But,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Cool

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: when he first had an iPad, um, he was watching YouTube kids. He was about two or three years old. And I remember watching him and interact with the YouTube, uh, page, do you, do you know what the first button is that he hit on the, on first digital button?

He ever learned how to hit

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: play.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: skip?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh. Oh yeah. 'cause he knows what's talking to him or not.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: he didn't want his stories interrupted

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah. This is boring. Fast forward.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: at that age, he

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: what the skip button was because they interrupted his story. Humans don't want to be interrupted,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: want to be told the [00:42:00] story. We do wanna be educated. We do want to be entertained.

So how do we help brands? We help brands by helping them create a show. We create long form content on a weekly basis. Typically that's in the form of a podcast or a YouTube channel, and that becomes the basis of all of their storytelling.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: become the chief storytelling officer. We build a funnel for them so that they have a place, they have a weekly show.

That show happens every single week no matter what from that weekly show. They'll also get short form content so that short form content can go on YouTube shorts, it can go on LinkedIn, it

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And those are clips from those interviews or shows?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: are clip

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. Hmm. And do you find that the interview is the, like with that owner or entrepreneur that you're bringing the easy button to, do you find that the interview thing is the right solution most of the time or sometimes are they just a talking head, just like giving your ideas out there just

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: we do both. We have interview format shows [00:43:00] for, um. curious entrepreneur that is okay with scheduling. Um, typically the higher, if you're dealing with a founder that has a lots of demands, most founders have lots of demands on their schedule, so they have to be obsessed with the podcast medium, the interview medium, so that they're okay,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: uh, our team helping them coordinate because chances are they have to coordinate other high value guests that have high demands on their schedule.

So now you're coordinating two people that are very busy to try to get them to book a show, but then not only book the show, they have to stack content so that no matter what every single week the episode comes out, um, which is why we do a lot of monologue style, talking to the camera, um, one idea, one takeaway, one lesson, something that's searchable that brands are looking for, um, to help them start to tell stories

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: their, their knowledge.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: hmm. And then one of the things that I, I, I have a producer for my [00:44:00] podcast and one of the coolest things that, um, he said to me was, look, if you wanna do this, just listen. He said, just commit to doing it for a cadence. And I think this is the most important thing for, I, I can't remember if he said six months or one year.

Just do it weekly for six months or one year. And that way you'll build the muscle, you'll find the time, like if you, especially if you block the time, um. And then in my head when he said that, I said, I know me, I'm gonna do it for a year and a, I'm gonna commit to 18 months and just go and not look at anything and just grind it out.

And to me that was like the greatest gift to be able to think about blocking my time to so that I could build the muscle. What's your best practice on like, starting one? Like do you tell them, okay, you, I'm not putting in like a, a like a hard sell like contract thing here. It's not a sales tactic, but to prevent churn for your business.

But do you have like a, a timeframe that you suggest for someone who wants to [00:45:00] start telling their story?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah, I mean, a hun. A hundred videos.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: A hundred.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: A hundred videos. And the reason why we start with a hundred is because we know if you're, if you're serious or not,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh wow. That's true. I, I, because there has to be a commitment otherwise there,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you don't set the bar at a hundred,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: uh.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: people 10, then those 10 will take a year to do.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: if you say a hundred, then you start to think differently of like, well, if I get three done this week, then I'm much closer to a hundred.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: it's interesting. I'm struggling with this right now. I joined a mastermind to, um, get out, like mess around with TikTok and all this other stuff that I don't even really understand, and I, I started off well, but I, I didn't put the hard boundary around. Uh, maybe I need a hundred or three a week or I, I just need to be more forthright and have a hard landscape without mushy edges to just go.

Because I think that, that the TikTok [00:46:00] in that really super short for form, that's not a clip.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: think that that also, who knows where it leads as well, and it's pretty easy. Like you just pick up your phone and you just go. What are your thoughts on that one?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I think a, the reason that I say a hundred is 'cause it changes your brain to think differently about what you're attempting to do.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: back to the five years of podcasting every single week, no matter what,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: single week we published a podcast no matter what, every Tuesday, 9:00 AM 9:00 AM Pacific time.

We published a new episode of Digital Hospitality. I held myself to that standard, but it wasn't until. We launched a second show where we started to learn the real magic of like how to monetize the show, how to get sponsors, and that's when our massive growth started happening.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Mm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: had two shows a week, which we didn't have the bandwidth to do,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: was overstretched. Right now, our team is overstretched again, doing nine shows a week and doing the other shows. That's nine shows a week. Just internally for our own Cali Barbecue media, our channels that we produce, [00:47:00] plus the 13 that we do for other clients. But like the only way that we've been able to grow is by expanding our thinking and challenging ourselves because then it forces you to put the pot processes in, procedures in place to do it.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Agreed. Huh? And then, um. Give us an example. Not of one of your businesses, one of one of your restaurants, but someone else's who they basically, they're like, okay, Shawn, I'm gonna do a hundred. I'm signing it. I'm going, and like, give us a success story

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I mean out, obviously we're most proud of our toast relationship because we have three shows now that we do a toast. Uh, restaurant Influencers. We have a YouTube show called Family Style Plus we do a Rising Tides live call and we just launched a restaurant Technology Substack. But when I think of the clients that we're helping, um, really excited about Greg Majeski.

Greg Majeski has a show room for seconds. Um, we've been [00:48:00] producing that show for over a year now. Um, they have 13 different restaurant brands in their portfolio. Um, but he's been very successful on LinkedIn, very successful on Instagram, very successful on TikTok. Um, his show is extremely successful. He's had some incredible guests on his show. Um. Watching that show grow and watching him, I mean, he was, he's successful no matter what. But now he has a media company behind him that allows him to go and pitch other sponsors as his restaurant grows. Um, which is really exciting for me to see. Of

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I think as you think of the, as we were talking about time and also just that idea of small giants and focusing in your little niche and going all in on the, on the niche and just having time work on your side time and hard work. Um, this movie, you saw Field of Dreams, right?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: course.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. So that's like one of my favorite movies.

And I think if I look at, if I, if I were to step [00:49:00] back and look at my entrepreneurial career. I don't know. I don't think I look at everything transactionally. Obviously transactions happen. You have to manage them well and deliver well, but like I look at it as filling up the karma pool, right?

Doing well by others, introducing others, connecting others, putting others first. So that's like where I really bring hospitality into my hospitality world. But it's really like a field of dream strategy too, which is also risky, but if you believe in it, it happens. And that's if you build it, they will come.

Right. And I think like on this whole podcast thing, when I committed to that year and a half, I was like, well, if I build it, they will come. Right. And I think a lot can be said, I need to watch that movie again. Um, I just went to a baseball game yesterday and I have my love rekindled, so, um. thank you for helping me think about that.

Um, I appreciate it. Um,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: something about the field of dreams?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: [00:50:00] yeah, totally.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I think Kevin Costner's full of shit

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: In general or in that movie.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: just in that movie,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Really? Tell me why.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: so used to believe that if you build it, they will come.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: no longer believe if you build it, they will come. I believe if you build it, you better tell people and then they will come.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I, but now I have to re-watch the movie because I feel like he built it. Oh, he didn't really tell anyone, did he?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: No.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: well, you know what? It did, like people saw what he was doing and like those, the farm suppliers and all this, and like his vendors were like, what the hell is he doing this crazy guy in the middle of Iowa is doing?

And I think Word did get around right.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: And I, I just believe in the modern world, entrepreneur, the line, if you build it, they will come, is a folklore because of Field of Dreams. opened a restaurant in a bad location and I believed that if I built something magical, people would come

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Mm,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: [00:51:00] Until I realized no one gives a shit until you tell, give them a reason to give a shit.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: well, did you move the location or did you give them a reason to come?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: we just, we just got better at barbecue. We got better at hospitality, and we got better at storytelling.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Interesting. Okay, so then question. Let's turn the, the, um, the lens on me. So I've had this platform for, uh, coming up on four years. It's like a really well regarded podcast and design and hospitality design. Um, looking at it and where, where I've taken it so far, what are your thoughts on what, what or ideas that I could, I should consider?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I believe that you work with so many different, incredible architects, hotels, designers, furniture makers, furniture brands, that if you look at the size and scope of all of those people that are in your landscape, take a look at what they're doing with digital [00:52:00] storytelling. Do they have a website? Do they have a YouTube page?

Do they have a podcast? Do they have an Instagram account? What are they posting on LinkedIn? I will tell you right now, without having done any research on any of that, that at best 5% of those people are putting out something worthwhile, something that's shareable, something that's noteworthy. 95%. Need help

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I think it's more, I, I, I think it's actually more than that.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So there you go.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. But you, I, the more you were about to give the colonel right there.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: the kernel is you are the key to that.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You are a storyteller. You have understood, you have been doing the work, you have been putting in the reps. You understand distribution, you understand marketing, you understand branding, and you can help them better tell their story and get more customers and create that ecosystem that you're looking for.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. My own media platform.[00:53:00]

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yes.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. And then my Jeffersonian DI dinners could be a subset of that.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Correct?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. Wow. Okay. So now I'm starting to stress out because now I don't know where to take the first bite.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: The first bite is go your toast.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You gotta find your toast. I found my toast. Toast didn't pay me for

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: that's the anchor tenant.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's the anchor tenant.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Interesting.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's the logo that gets all the other logos that gives you the credibility.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Who's the furniture company that you love to work with? Your Dream furniture company.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Well, it's the one I'm a partner with Berman Falk,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: there you go.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: and they're already our, they're my first sponsor actually.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You need to expand the scope of the relationship

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. And that's kind of happening organically too, but I think we need to step out and look at that.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. Okay. That's awesome. [00:54:00] Um, so you, thank you. but tell me more about Greg and Room for Seconds and like, if I were to talk to him right now, what would he say?

Um, the biggest unlock you provided him was

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Uh, plug and play, allowing him to be him

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: our team to work with his marketing team to unlock all the benefits of having content across all platforms.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm. And then when you,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: so

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: what is,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: has,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: yeah, what does plug and play mean to you

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Plug and play means he's, he's, he hits record and then our team takes it from there and we publish everything.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Mm-hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So all he has to do is show up for his interview.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: his interview, and then his show is produced, published, promoted,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow. And then have you, with any of your clients out there, have you [00:55:00] taken, um, like a, a look at the top line or what, however they measure their new, uh, from a, a sales perspective and then a business perspective. So their revenue

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: one side, and then like new inbounds or new customers, new prospects that become customers.

Have you looked at, um. In general, like what the uptick is and how, what the lag is from when they start it to how they see like a, a percentage on revenue or number of new inbounds.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I mean, I wish I had a scientific answer for that, but outside of the, what I do know is toast. I. Started with one show, now we do three different shows. So we've expanded the scope of our work that has led to other brands reaching out to launch shows, which has led to them doing more work with us.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So from the [00:56:00] standpoint of sales, a hundred percent content and marketing has to equal sales, but a lot of it is a longer term play,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: that Toast has the ability to, I can refer somebody to toast and get paid for that referral, but they know that the deeper play is the amount of work that I do.

I mean, how many times have we talked about toast just on this show?

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's beyond the scope of the work that I do for them.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: because you're a raving fan now, too.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I, I believe in what they do.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I, I mean, if there's anybody that runs retail, that runs restaurants that isn't on toast, please let me know. I'll find out who, who's your local rep and get you the best deal you can.

But like, I truly believe in it,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I believe that at some point, we'll look back at this interview, you know, five years from now TOAST will be in a hundred different countries Toast will be the Apple for restaurants

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Wow. Wow. And is that your goal for them, or is that something that they've stated?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: That's my goal for them.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Oh wow.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: they're a publicly traded company. They, [00:57:00] they can only state so

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. Oh wow. That's super cool, huh? Wow. This has been. Interesting. And I know we're gonna keep talking from after this moment, and I, I appreciate it. I mean, even just in our first conversation, you're like, take the logo off your TikTok thing.

I did it

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Sweet.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: it was great, but I need to do more tiktoks.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: So number one, do

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: mm-hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: take the logo now take your own advice. Take the logo. Don't say I need to do more tiktoks.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Mm-hmm.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I just need to do more short form video

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah. Well, exactly. to do.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Great. Publish it on YouTube. Shorts. Great. Publish it on Instagram reels great, you just need more talking to the camera.

Whatever the style is. If tiktoks the platform, then put it on

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay,

so here's the other thing. All right. And this is another block for me. I'm like, I'm some old. Dude, who the fuck wants to listen to me? That's that. And people do listen to me on these [00:58:00] podcasts, right? So I get it. But like, it's usually, I, my thinking is you're more interesting than I am. Like, let's have a talk.

I don't like it when the, like my wife is trying to plan my 50th birthday party and I was like, I don't fucking want one. Like stop. Like, it's not

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: You're gonna have one. It's,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I was like, I don't want, I don't want one. It's crazy. Like, I don't like it, I don't like the light. It's, and it sounds weird 'cause I have this podcast and platform, but like, I don't like the light shine on me. I like learning from others and doing that. The, the short form thing. But I've gotten my head around, like, people do like this show.

They do listen to it. Um, I get a lot of incredible feedback from it. But the short form part is like, who's gonna wanna listen to me? And then I'll do something and it'll be thousands of like views or whatever. So I'm like, I guess people do, but like, what the hell? It's just so weird. And I think that goes back to the beginning of our conversation where there's an, now that production is in our pocket, you can [00:59:00] find your audience anywhere.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yep.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: And there is an audience. And I just know, like, and I didn't even have TikTok on my phone until like a couple months ago. And, um, I just find myself like scrolling through and it's like almost soothing in a way. They've really fucked up my brain in, in a way. But it's like I'm spending less time watching tv.

So I guess like maybe that time I would've allocated to watching tv, which we all need to like re I guess like recline and recharge, um, or reading a book or whatever. It's like being reallocated to that. And I feel like that's the big trend and people, everyone is going to be flipping through their dopamine hit.

Machine and they're gonna see me talking to 'em, to me, that would like frighten me, but like, I guess other people, people like hearing me talk. It's weird. I, I don't understand it.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you have. You have a unique set of skills. You're

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Like Liam Neeson,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Yeah,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Um, this has been super [01:00:00] wonderful. If people wanted to learn more about you or Cali BB Q Media or your restaurants, what's the best way for them to figure that out?

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Go to our website, be the show.media, or you can, uh, send me a message on Instagram's usually the fastest at Shawn p Walchef, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on all the platforms. I'm weirdly available. I reach out anytime. I love talking Shop.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Awesome. And I just wanna give you a heartfelt thank you. Um, I just knew from the first time that we spoke and you gave me that little hint of the logo, ditch it. I just knew that we'd have a special connection.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: I really appreciate you having me on. This's been an awesome conversation. You,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yeah.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: you are a master of your craft.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: now you're making me blush and my glasses are gonna fog up. thank you.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Bulgarian listeners after this one gets

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Yes. Well, I'm gonna call,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: my wife is Bulgarian and I'm spending six weeks in Bulgaria this summer.

So,

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: oh, we're gonna be huge again. Uh, it's funny,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: roots.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: I was in DC last week [01:01:00] maybe, and I texted Rado, but he was on vacation with his son. So, um, I have to call him this week and just say, all right, let's make a big push in Bulgaria. Maybe rather than going to Albania, we need to go to Bulgaria for a vacation.

Does the Danube go through Bulgaria? Like, is that where,

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: Uh, it does on the top, but the

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: at the top.

shawn-walchef_1_04-28-2025_063455: where you want to go in Bulgaria.

dan-ryan_61_04-28-2025_093455: Okay. well thank you. And then also I'd be remiss without thanking all of our listeners and watchers, because without you and your interest and your feedback, um, we wouldn't be here talking with pretty amazing people like Shawn.

So, um, thank you all and if this changed or impacted your ideas of hospitality, please pass it along. And don't forget to like, subscribe, leave comments. It all helps with, or our organic distribution, so thank you.

[01:02:00]