Advice Line with Steve Ells of Chipotle

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/accb41d2a1f325b9

Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show.
who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with.
Alright, let's get to it.
Joining me today is Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle. Steve, welcome back to the show. Uh, thanks for coming back on.
Guy, it's great to be here again.
Good to see you. Uh Steve, you've been on the show twice, uh, the first time way back in 2017, when you told us, of course, the origin story of Chipotle, how you were working in a high-end restaurant in San Francisco, and basically you had this idea.
To sell burritos in order to save the money so you could start your own fine dining restaurant.
which was your dream, but of course that's not what happened, that
Burrito Place turned into Chipotle. It was started in Denver and today, of course, it is a massive
global restaurant brand uh at a publicly traded company.
Uh and as always, is anyone listening uh who hasn't heard that original High Beltis episode about launching Chipotle, it's really fascinating. Go go check it out. Uh we'll put a link to it in the podcast description.
Steve.
Also came back on the show in 2023 to talk about a new concept uh that you were about to launch in New York City. It's called kernel.
And Steve, just to summarize, uh basically the idea behind it was
an entirely plant based menu.
And then basically all of the ordering was done via an app, and the meals were assembled by robots, and there were s still human employees, but far fewer.
Uh but
As far as I understand with Colonel after about a year, uh it it I guess it just didn't work. Can you
Tell me what happened and
Some of the things you learn from that.
Sure. I I think that's a very good summary. Uh
Guy.
I wouldn't say that it didn't work with kernel.
I would say though
That
uh Colonel didn't appear to be the rocket ship that Chipotle was.
And I wanted another rocket ship. And so we we closed down uh the two Colonel restaurants after less than a year.
Uh
Spent a couple of months uh
Uh
You know, retooling and opened counter service. And and I'll tell you the the reception has been wonderful. It's a sandwich restaurant, right?
It is.
Yeah. If you think about the tens of thousands of chain sandwich
uh places in the United States.
There are
Um varying qualities of these places.
If you compare that with what we do at counter service.
We're
Vastly different.
The bread is only four ingredients.
A flower.
Water.
Yeast.
And salt.
And we bake the bread every day.
Actually we don't bake it, we have
These
amazing artisans bake the bread for us every day.
Uh we roast all of our own meats. We're making all of our own sauces.
We're chopping fresh herbs, we're squeezing fresh citrus, and there's this demonstrable difference between
the world of
chain sandwiches and what we do at counter service, much like back in nineteen ninety three.
There was a there was a
Big difference between
the world of fast food and then what we started to offer at Chipotle.
Yeah, I mean your whole model was about standards, right? It was like we're gonna make the guacamole in every location, we're gonna marinate the meat, we're gonna grill it, we're gonna chop the pico de gallo. And as you scaled, people said, Hey, this can't be done. You can't scale this. Yeah
I'm curious, when you know, with Colonel one of the
in innovations was to use
robots automated uh food prep right and
some pretty big players, uh in in are are working on
basically creating kitchens where a lot of the food is cr is made by
by robots how do you assess learned a lot about
That process
With kernel.
Um, are you bullish on it? I mean, is that where things will
are are ultimately gonna be headed towards not everything made by robots, but a lot of things made by automated machines.
So y you know.
The robot arm.
Did
Really
Two things.
Yeah.
It picked from Iraq.
uh the item that was being ordered and put it in the oven.
And then when it was done.
It took that item.
Out of the oven.
So it was part of
Automating the process.
To help reduce
The amount of
Of labour.
But it really wasn't about
um the making of the food.
You know, still in our central kitchen.
We have knives.
And cutting boards and pots and pans. And we're really cooking and so
The
Your question will robots displace that.
I mean
Maybe someday, but certainly not.
Not
Anywhere in the near future. I think what we we learned that it's polarizing. I mean, some people were fascinated with the robot arm.
Other people said
They want
People making their food.
At the end of the day.
in pivoting.
From Colonel to counter service.
uh we learn that the the human interaction is very, very important. And and when a customer walks into a counter service
They're greeted.
There are people uh there who welcome the the customer, who take care of the customer. Now
There are less people in a counter service than a traditional fast casual, and that's
By design.
And so
You know, the system
To make these sandwiches has automation.
In it.
It allows us to
you know, more efficiently manage the workflow.
And ultimately, uh, it'll allow for a better economic model, which allows us to invest in higher quality ingredients.
And and really uh make better food. Foundationally, it's very similar to Chipotle. And so
I just I want to do that again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome, it's exciting. Um, Steve, what do you say? Should we bring on our first caller?
I'd love to.
All right, great. Welcome to the advice line. Uh caller, tell please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, Guy and Steve. My name's Rebecca Smith and I'm calling from Streaky Bay in South Australia.
My partner Tony and I established Streaky Bay Distillers in two thousand and twenty two and we make small batch gin, vodka, and whiskey in our tiny distillery in our tiny town.
in a wild remote part of South Australia. Wow. Welcome to the show, Rebecca. You may be the farthest ever. I'm looking at Streaky Bay. It's like
You know,'cause people think about like m most Australians I think live on that the eastern side, right? Melbourne City, Brisbane and
And and there's Adelaide and then you're like w you're like way out there. I mean the Streaky Bay is is
It's a tiny place.
Okay. So you have a distillery and you make uh tell me what you make there.
We make uh small batch gin, we make some vodka and we are just about to release our first um small batch whiskey.
And are you mainly selling it in the Streaky Bay area to like restaurants and bars and stuff?
Yeah, exactly. So we sell it um to three sort of high end accommodation providers who serve it either in their rooms or over the bar. Several sort of bars and restaurants, and then some South Australian uh independent bottle shops.
And a couple of gifting businesses.
Interesting. Yeah, tell me how did you get into this business?
I mean is this something you've been doing your whole career in life? Absolutely not. So I was a remote area midwife and a remote area nurse for most of my career. And yeah, we had a a family tragedy, the death of my younger sister. And so we were looking for artistic ways to process our grief.
And we sort of stumbled into a course in distilling.
And then once we've done the course, we just absolutely fell in love with all aspects of it.
Yeah. All right, and and tell me about so where are you selling most of your your inventory?
So we sell about fourteen percent online through our website. Okay. And that is probably
the most margin. And then we also have a mobile
food and cocktail van and that's probably about twenty eight percent of our income. And then our wholesale is fifty seven percent.
Got it. Okay. Um and tell me a little bit about how the business is doing. Wha what's your what are your sales?
Okay, so the turnover for this financial year are expecting to be about four hundred thousand
um US dollars. And last year it was around two hundred thousand.
Okay, pretty great. All right. Before we we we get to uh Steve, tell us your question.
Okay, so my question is since our inception in two thousand and twenty two, there's been an explosion of small family distilleries around Australia. There's at least six hundred and fifty in the crait sector. So
In this kind of climate, how do we differentiate ourselves and find a point of difference that will resonate with our buyers and be authentic and meaningful to our customers?
Okay, I wanna bring Steve in. Um Steve
Thoughts, questions, ideas.
Um
Et cetera for Rebecca. Yeah.
Yeah, well certainly in a crowded market, you you you do want to um let folks know how you are differentiated.
I guess that would be my question. How how are you differentiated? Yeah. Um
We've been sort of
trying to differentiate ourselves in in the connection to place. So we live in a really small community and we swap our gin for local ingredients. So uh we collect up mulberries, figs
citrus we're kind of like the bower birds of the distilling industry. Nice. And we use some Australian ingredients, you know, quandong, abalone shell, coastal daisy, coastal rosemary.
And the other way that I guess we do differentiate is um
We
Donate for one of a
one of our gins, we donate five dollars a bottle to motor neuron disease, um, because of a family experience. And um I
got a real interest in art, so I do all of the um lino printing for the labels.
Steve, I don't know if you can see their website, but the these are beautiful bottles. I mean I love the
the shape of the the bottom that you you've chosen and the
The design and you see through it, it's really nice.
A backdrop that gives it a beautiful color, uh really
Really nicely done.
Thank you very much.
Nice. So it it sounds like these um botanicals that that
are from this particular place.
Th these are for the gin, correct?
Correct.
Yeah.
This sounds like that's the the differentiated product that you have. It's the gin. Or or would you say that the vodka is also equally as differentiated?
No, I agree with you. I think the gins are
much more differentiated. I think there's l lots of those um other distilleries are also making really good
And really good gin.
as well. But yeah, some of the products that we use, um
only, as far as I'm aware, only we are using
It seems to me that
a company that focuses that that's best in the world at at something, and maybe maybe you're best in the world at
having these particular book canicles.
And you you forage for them, you pick them, it's a community effort, whatever. There's a very nice story to that.
And I think a a brand that focuses on what they're best in the world at
and and ha has a product line that's that's cohesive
Mm might
somehow resonate?
uh or be more impactful with customers than than having
Well, we have some botanicals, and then we also have a vodka, and we also have a whiskey too. Um, just from a branding standpoint, maybe that makes some sense.
Actually, it really does. Yeah.
We had started to wonder whether we were going a little bit off of
Um
Original
Brand?
Rebecca in the early days of Chipotle.
When I presented the the offerings, people said, Well, Steve, you just you're not offering enough to people. They want more variety.
And I said, no, no, no, people can make all different kinds of combinations of the base ingredients.
And um, but it was it was very, very different from the typical fast food approach was to have limited offerings and all different kinds of things. And so but
but it allowed us to focus on just a couple of things and do them better than anybody else.
And I and I see a parallel between your your gin making, your botanicals, and foraging for those ingredients.
And I really like that. That resonates with me.
Hundred percent. I I you know, I think about um some of these like single malts from Scotland that are from very remote places, right? Like the like La Freig it's g somewhere that you can't get to easily. But it's a massive international brand because the place


And
Your place is Streaky Bay.
Right. It's the it's the taste of that abalone shell or the
Whatever salt what is salt bush? Is it a bush that tastes like salt?
It's a really prolific bush that grows everywhere in arid climates around Australia. And it is a it's a salty taste, but you can actually um
Cook it.
And it was eaten, you know, by traditional um Aboriginal people that lived here before.
I love that. I mean just the way you're talking about these these things. Like
I'm I mean literally, could you put a story on the bottle? Could you put a little booklet and just attach it to the neck of the bottle where you read that, you know, you find out
what you're doing, what you're tasting. You're tasting the
coastline of southern Australia. That's where you get that.
Sense of place.
And then add and then the handcrafting and the foraging really is do you import to the United States?
No, we haven't um looked at any kind of it is it is it possible? Is that is that something that's easily done or is this is this do you think going to be a a a product?
For Australia.
Would absolutely love to do it. I think it's a very complex um
Thing to do.
You know, it's achievable. Anything's achievable.
Well, I just wonder if it's easier to break away from the pack.
I if you came to the United States, I I think about
um a lot of bars and the bartenders doing craft cocktails and and then trying to have ingredients that really
Stand apart from the others.
And I can see this gaining traction and it might be worth
exploring the the expense and the headache of trying to
Break into the United States.
Yeah.
Here's my suggestion, Rebecca.
Go to
I'm sure there are Australian bars in Los Angeles and New York City, right? Where most Australians probably live, I would think.
You know, I just went to a uh uh tequila bar
In San Francisco, every
Every uh bottle is small artisanal
Mexican brand.
They had brands you've never heard of beautiful bottles.
And I wonder whether it'd be worth just going with a suitcase of the stuff.
To LA.
And you know, connecting with some of these
bars or Australians hang out and there are I'm sure there gotta be Australian bars, like they're Irish bars, and see if they would you start there, just carrying them.
That's a fantastic idea.
It at least sounds like a lot of fun.
So I don't think I don't think you can go wrong.
And you got a story about Streaky Bay. Now I wanna go to Streaky Bay. It looks awesome. Yeah. It's very remote and um it's very rugged and
But it we have empty beaches and um
It's a really beautiful place.
Yeah.
Rebecca, congratulations. What a what a fantastic brand you have.
Thank you so much, Dave.
Rebecca Smith, the brand is Streaky Bay Distillers. Uh, thank you so much for calling in.
Thanks, guy.
You know I the thing about um
things like gin or or even tequila, well s could say well, whiskey too. There is I mean
What she's doing there's that element of
tasting notes and flavor profiles and things that m make it really
Interesting.
It's not just a gin. It is a
Abalony shell gin, right? Like that. Yeah, gin and tonic's great, but but an abalony shell gin tonic sounds even more interesting.
Yeah. Well, and so as she started as I heard about the pitch
I was thinking like oh not another not another spirit, right? It's like but her story is so authentic.
And and that she is highly differentiated in in in the um in the ingredients of this place.
You know, a product that speaks to a place is very powerful.
And then when you combine that with the um the hand foraging
Uh I I just I really think it's cool and then the packaging is cool. And it's it's so
anti-corporate also. I think it's I think it'll resonate with folks.
Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, and we're taking your calls. And Steve, you ready for another call? Let's go.
Alright, let's bring our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business or your product.
Hi, I'm Shri Holima, the founder and CEO of Mat Zero. I'm calling from London. We make low voltage and safe heating mats that warm the person and not the space.
A simple yet radical idea to save energy.
Cut admissions.
and bring warmth to where it's needed.
The most.
Awesome. Well thank you for calling in. So okay, Matt Zero. This is a tell me what this is. Describe what we're talking about here.
Essentially it it's a a heated mat, something that you sit on, lie on, sleep on, uh and it heats up.
You directly. Okay.
Um, it can be powered either by battery, mains, or solar if you're completely off grid.
And it's the size of a yoga mat, or something like that?
We actually have three different sizes. So our largest one, so the flagship product is like a yoga mat size, but we have a mini as well, which is around sort of your seat size. Uh I'm sitting on one right now to stay warm.
Got it.
And I'm assuming this is for uh it's just a more efficient way to stay warm, uh when you're
Camping? Like what tell me what the h how did you come up with this idea? Wha what's what's the story?
Originally um I I grew up internationally. Uh I had parents in the humanitarian sector, um and it's there where I really witnessed firsthand the disparity in energy access and saw how people struggled uh in the winter to stay warm.
I moved to the UK to study product design and engineering, and that's where I designed this concept of electrical safe electrical heating for those scenarios. I also really hated being cold and was totally not acclimatised to the UK weather.
So the idea was and is
if I'm reading with the lines for disaster relief, like you would basically
instead of handing out blankets or uh you know you would these would be available to people
And uh they could efficiently heat themselves by lying on these mats.
Exactly. So instead of using gas or burning whatever they can get their hands on, this is a a safe way not only for the people, but for the planet too.
Yeah.
So Sri uh before we we bring in Steve, tell tell us your question.
So originally intended for the humanitarian sector, our products are showing real traction in the outdoor, camping, and consumer and even healthcare sectors.
All of these uh make sense.
But need focus, time, and resource.
So when your product genuinely fits multiple markets, how do you decide where to put
uh your focus without losing momentum and drifting away from the reason you built this in the first place.
Uh and and it this is a for profit business, right? This is not a nonfor profit business.
Yeah, no, we're for profit.
Okay. And so I think this is part of the the challenge here as well is balancing the the fact that we are commercially led.
but have a mission ultimately behind that vision as well. And getting that balance is it's a tricky one.
How much does the mat cost?
So our largest is uh two hundred and ninety five pounds.
And our smallest the mini one is a hundred and nine pounds.
Okay, I think that's probably about one hundred fifty dollars to three hundred fifty, something like that. Exactly on the math. But so they're they're not cheap, but they're not but they're not out of range.
All right, Steve, I was wanna bring you in here. Uh Sri'm making these mats comes from a family of humanitarian aid workers.
Uh, but uh there are different use cases here and she's trying to figure out how to keep doing what she's doing without drifting from I guess from the mission in a sense. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I I think it's fascinating. Um and I love that there there's a real purpose
behind what you do.
But at the same time
Y no there needs to be an economic model.
to make this a reality for those in in need. And and so this tie in
with this with this potential
outdoorsy camping kind of a
Kind of a product.
Might make sense.
I'm a I'm a skier.
And
So over the years
You know, it started with heated boots.
And then it became heated socks, yeah and heated gloves.
Now I have a heated vest.
All battery operated with rechargeable batteries.
They're incredibly effective.
They're expensive.
I mean they're really expensive. People pay a lot. And so I think there's this really interesting
uh way to market.
Your product.
To the outdoor enthusiast.
who is willing to pay a lot.
for really good gear.
And so
And but there are a lot of also a lot of outdoor
Companies that that give back.
to the community.
So they'll give back a percentage of their revenue.
To different
causes which is is is is super cool. And so I see this as a perfect fit.
You know, you can market.
Uh to the enthusiast.
uh they're certainly willing to uh to buy your product and you and you let them know that that not only are they getting something really
Great.
But it's giving back.
to to your to your cause. I think that's a great tie in.
Yeah. It's uh it's good you say that because we've actually got Matt's uh at Everest Base Camp at the moment, uh keeping the that exact audience warm.
That's great. I I agree with Steve on this. I mean uh you have
There are so many use cases here, you know, camping.
You I imagine slipping this into a a sleeping bag or a tent. Um I mean people are already sleeping on these sort of inflatable you know mattresses on in tents as little ones. Um ice fishing, mountain guides, um exactly. People hunters who who are hunting in i in the winter.
D even disaster preparedness kids. I'm in California. Everyone's got an earthquake kit.
I think people will will find all kinds of uses. I mean, I can imagine outdoor sporting events, you know, having the small one where you sit on one of these mats. And and that would make a huge difference. Exactly. So there are all kinds of use cases, and I think that the
It's not one or the other. It's not about oh I should only do this.
I I think that you ha you gotta you know this you gotta build a sustainable business. So you need to get into those
places where people are gonna spend the money on them. And then
over time you can have a some career program where where you give them away. Or maybe you bake that in, where, you know, for every
ten sold or a hundred sold or fifty sold we we give one away because
Once you achieve scale
Then you can
You can do two businesses. You can have the mission sort of non profit side and you've got the
For profit side where people are actually
love this thing and are using it for all their their fun outdoor activities.
That's great. I I love this idea. Ha how how will uh production occur? Do you have facilities now that can scale this?
Yeah, absolutely. We've chosen specific manufacturers, everything's contracted that they can scale with us. So from originally making samples through to uh tens and thousands.
of units. Um, and all the production is actually based in Europe as well.
And uh presumably, I mean these get pretty warm, right? Like you can
Uh I mean
Let's say you're ice fishing in Minnesota, you know, and it's like minus ten.
And you're in a tent with one of these things, uh it's gonna keep you
Warm?
Yeah, absolutely. We've done lab testing uh to negative uh twenty here in the UK and sort of like
climate control chambers. But on the ground, we we've had units in we have units in Ukraine, and that gets to negative 20 quite easily. So we've had the real world and lab testing in those really harsh.
Um same with Everest and along the Himalayan regions, you
Yeah, you get extremely cold temperatures.
It's amazing. That's a good thing. Socks and and gloves and things, I like to make sure that
That I extend the life.
And so I always adjust it not so that I feel the warmth.
But
That I don't get cold.
And there's a difference there, right? If you if you turn it yeah, turn it on to a temperature where you're actually feeling warm, it
drains it pretty quickly, but you can adjust it so
You don't get cold.
And uh and it lasts a little bit longer.
Well, um actually there's no need to do that with our mats because we have built in sensors, they automatically regulate yourself. So you can have it on Mac, but it won't be drawing constant power from your battery source because it'll keep you sustained at that temperature through the feedback system.
That's cool. Amazing. Amazing technology.
And uh I mean it seems like there's also an opportunity to uh partner with some of these expeditions. You say you're you've already at Ever Space Camp. I mean
I would look I would look out for like polar expeditions also, or like Antarctic expeditions and see if you can p partner with w you know some of these people who are
really um you know posting about their tr travels and their adventures um you know in blogs and on and and and social media because

thing to be part of, right? To be affiliated with. Yeah.
It's awesome. Matt Zero is the name of the brand. Congratulations, three. Um good luck with it. Thanks for calling in.
Been a pleasure, thank you.
Super cool.
Yeah, thank you.
So so Steve, you ski with all of that stuff, and I'm thinking I I'm thinking
Like how cold do you get? I mean, you know, the technology of cold but but the but the jackets that are made today are and and the clothing is so good.
The quality is so high now.
But you're wearing like battery powered socks.
Well, so so yeah, the my my feet do get cold, but the the vest is an interesting one. So you know, when you're when you're active and you're in the sun
And it's the middle of the day, you don't have you don't have the vest on. But as soon as it starts to get cloudy
Or you're in the in the shade and you're sitting on a chair lift and it stops and it's fifteen minute like
You start to then you turn it on. You start to g and you turn it on and and it really helps you it's really cool.
This is a this is a great business. I I like I like Shree's idea and um and again that that it has something
uh virtuous uh about it, you know, that she's giving uh f to humanitarian efforts is I think a a real plus. Yeah, and it can make camping even even better, right? Like I get freezing cold in the tent, so there you go. Sure.

Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, and let's bring in our next caller.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, I'm John Rarick. I'm calling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I spend most of my time on Abruzzo, Italy, where I'm the owner of Cantina di Rosina.
An organic vineyard and winery in southern Abruzzo.
Awesome. Thanks for calling in, John. Okay, so you own a winery in
in Italy. Tell me a little bit about
W about telling the story.
So my mother's family were major producers in the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds in southern Ebruzzo.
Of fine wines.
And then World War One comes along.
And Italy gets pretty beat up.
And
When
My grandfather returns from World War One.
Um
Nothing's growing.
There's a disease that has hit most of Europe's vines called Flaroxa, a bug that affected many of the vineyards.
So they literally just packed up and abandoned the entire
Business.
And came to New York and Philadelphia.
And shows other
other occupations and raised a family then
One hundred years later to the date.
I went back and bought back the house.
And the vineyards?
And replanted everything.
Wow, wow, amazing. And so now you're producing wine on that original site. How much wine are you producing a year?
Yeah, so our first year we produced five hundred cases of both red and rose.
And I kept it small the first year on purpose so that when we
brought it here to the States. I could really, you know, use it to develop the brand.
Get into restaurants, get into retail specifically in the northeast, where there's a high concentration not only of
Italian Americans, but also Brussels Americans. So
The wine was well received there. This year we're we're producing fifteen thousand cases. Oh wow. So we're really amping it up because about eighty percent of our volume is in the US, and the opportunity clearly lies in the US for us.
Yeah.
And w wine, alcohol is is is hi uh heavily regulated. It's gotta go state by state. So do you are you distributing it all over the United States right now?
Currently we're in New York.
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida. And I've got a growth plan mapped out over the next five years.
So that we can manage that because with growth also comes an addition of sales force that I have to put in the field. And also I need to be there to oversee it because.
I'm not a wine maker by trade.
Um, I was smart enough to know I needed to bring in a team.
Um professional.
agronomists, wine makers
In Italy to help make sure that everything was running. My background is really in sales and marketing. So I'm back and forth quite often.
But that's really where I'll be putting most of my focus.
Got it. Okay, and before we bring in Steve, tell us uh your question for us.
Іно соприй.
I think everybody knows that the wine industry in general, alcoholic beverages
The consumption in the US has really been experiencing a big decline. We're also seeing a lot of competition from new places like
Cocktails, hard seltzers, and even now we're seeing cannabis infused drinks coming to market, right? So all this new competition and Gen Z in in particular is just drinking much less.

So
How do I market to a generation of wine consumers to really start to cultivate that next generation?
That'll allow us to, you know.
continue to thrive while we wait for the pendulum to swing back in our direction. Yeah. All right. Important question, a big question. Um Steve Ellison wanna bring you in. Um be before we answer the question, you do you have any any questions uh yourself or John?
So
Um
One thing I think is is is interesting, there's an interesting parallel.
And that is
You know
Y you um are marketing something now that that doesn't have as much demand as it once did.
Um
But
With Chipotle.
There really wasn't a demand.
She uh
What we were offering. What we were offering was very different.
From typical fast food.
The price point was
Much higher. I mean back in nineteen ninety three, think about fast food menus.
Uh Taco Bells.
menu uh was categorized by fifty nine
Seventy nine and ninety nine cent items.
McDonald's had a dollar menu.
Um
Things were bundled and and named by number.
You ordered a number one and if you wanted to
You know, make it big, you said super size it.
And then along comes
Chipotle. I mean we had to really
Teach people.
That they had
choices and they had to work with the
with the servers behind the counter to get their item.
I mean,
Even something as basic as
Where to go when they walked in the restaurant.
I m remember in a fast food restaurant.
The first thing you did was walk to the cash register.
We asked people to
to walk first to the to the food offerings.
And so we had to lead customers one by one.
The way
I differentiated and built the business.

Developing.
These one on one relationships.
with our customers
And
By the time
I retired twenty seven years later. I think we had well over a million customers a day. So you'd think about
Do you really build individual uh uh relationships with individual customers?
And and the answer is sort of yes, you do. Um, if you're going to differentiate your
product or your offering.
I think it starts with
One on one
Personal relationships.
And then customers
do the speaking for you.
And help to differentiate.
your offering or or your product.
John, I have a a question for you, but do you do a newsletter at all?
Have you done anything with that?
We do and we we we capture email addresses on our site. Great. So we have an opt in list and w we'll do a qu a monthly newsletter.
Yeah.
And I try to make it very personal so that people see our journey because I I you know I'm
People tell me I have a story that's a little unusual.
Yeah, I let me let me offer s uh suggestion around that. So I I think the story is uh interesting, very interesting family story and and compelling.
When it comes to your newsletter
I think what what's critical and this is something that I think a lot of people make a mistake around newsletters is that they don't they think more about using it as a branding opportunity rather than
Really great.
Content or information. So we do a newsletter for this show, and I don't use it to promote the show. Of course, I want people to listen to it, but I really want it to be a resource.
for ideas, strategies, et cetera, et cetera. And I think if you use the newsletter in that way, it could really it's you it's you want it to be something people read. You know, pe people know Tuscany, they know Sicily. Nobody knows about abrupt of wines in the United States. I mean some people do, but most people don't, right? And so that that that there's a story to tell
There, what do I eat?
this with? What um what are some interesting cooking tips? W how should I taste these things? That's that's the first thing.
The second thing is you're right, it's a hard time. I'm in the Bay Area, I'm in Sonoma County all the time, small wineries are closing or consolidating, and it's unclear if it's a long term trend or something temporary.
Right. Uh and the hope of course is that it's that it's temporary.
Um but it
You know, you're also seeing some interesting trends with
certain kinds of celebrities, particularly
Athletes.
I would also think this is just a a shot in the dark idea, but
I would think about
trying to send identify select players on NBA teams, NFL teams, and send them
Some of this wine and see if
You get a response.
You know, I mean you're you're looking at what what LeBron James is doing with wine and
A lot of
Uh really influential basketball players are even buying their own wineries, but
I think that could be an interesting um thing to try out, especially when you're talking about something different, which is a brutto is different, right? It's a it's a
For a lot of people, it's a discovery.
And and that that's where I think you have the opportunity.
Those are great suggestions. Thank you, guy. Yeah, Steve, any any final thoughts?
Or advice for John? Yeah.
I I I like I like that. Uh
The idea of of finding people you can uh
partner with to to help promote the brand. You know, obvious is is uh partnering with restaurants.
Yeah.
To feature your wine.
You know, maybe inviting them out.
To the property?
uh hosting them for
dinners and and uh events.
And um
helping them understand your story and and they can in turn share your story with their diners.
You know, I often notice that when there is a story behind the wine and especially a personality and maybe a family legacy.
People tend to perk up.
I think wine tends to be uh a very uh sort of personal uh uh experience.
For folks.
And and I think that avoiding traditional kinds of marketing
uh probably makes it more authentic.
and uh and more desirable.
Yeah, for sure. I you know, John, I just went to a wine dinner uh at a wonderful restaurant hosted by the winemaker. It was for it was a friend of mine, but he invited
you know, the top sort of uh m m m members of the club, which I'm sure you've got members of the club, and it was very special because he he brought out wines that he they don't sell, you know, and and wines that are still in the process of of you know of being aged. And it was really fascinating to have that experience. So
I'm sure there are things like that that you are thinking about doing or doing, but it's really you want to right now really lean into that.
that group. You know, the people who who are gonna be subscribers to the club, uh, that's recurring revenue, you know that. And I think building it out to get young people to drink it is a is a different challenge. But
That will happen over time, especially as you figure out ways to tell the story using social media, of course, even TikTok. I mean
You know, book talk, right? Who who people thought b people were done reading books, all of a sudden book talk happens and a whole new
you know, slew of writers ha have become extremely successful.
So I I think there are some interesting ways to try and do it. You know, uh traditionally people say, Oh, well, wine isn't accessible and young people feel intimidated by that. I don't think that's true. I think young people want an experience, they want a story.
And if it's about tasting a brutzo.
You know, the terroir, the the the soil, the air, the salinity, whatever it is.
Um that
That that does work. It's not gonna work
right away with everybody, but it's gonna work with enough people where you start to build
Brand awareness.
Well thank you. We're gonna focus then on
I what I'm hearing from both of you is build an emotional connection with that audience. Yeah. And really just can just keep at it.
Yeah, a hundred percent. I I think so. John Raric, the brand is called Cantina di Rosina. Good luck. Thanks for calling him in.
John, good luck. Thanks so much.
What a great story. Um
And and and you know, I I would not be afraid that just because the the the current trend shows that there's less consumption, I would not be afraid to get into that business.
uh if you're passionate about it and you have yeah this sort of legacy connection.
I think that's
That makes for a great story. And plus I think he really enjoys it.
He really enjoys this the lifestyle, so
A hundred percent.
You know, that's that's part of it.
And and look, there are all these, you know
in the industry and with alcohol in general.
But at the end of the day it's about people around table, you know.
Just being together.
And wine is often part of that.
Exactly.
Steve, before I let you go, uh one question that I ask all of our
guest you've been on, which is if you could go back to, you know, when you you were young and started Chipotle out and you could give yourself advice.
Now that you know everything you know.
What do you think would have been helpful?
So
You know, I was so maniacally focused on the business.
I was there from morning to night.
You know.
at least the first year without taking days off. I mean, the only days I had off were the days we closed.
Christmas, Thanksgiving.
Um
I would have tried
To live a more balanced life.
I think I was
It's a little insular.
Awesome.
Right. So focused. And
And I and I and I argue that that that was contributing to the success of the business.
I think well maybe
Maybe I missed something.
Maybe
It could have been even bigger had I been.
More balanced.
Anyway, that's just sort of like personal reflection.
Now I think I have a more balanced life. I still work hard, but I also take time for more time for friends and family and reflection.
Yeah. It's great advice. It's hard to do when you're building something, but you're right. I mean it is critical. Exactly.
That is Steve Ells. Uh he's the founder of Chipotle. Uh Steve, thanks so much for coming back on the show.
Guy, always a pleasure to be on. Thanks for having me.
And by the way, if you haven't heard our original Chipotle episode, you've gotta go check it out. It's really a fascinating story. Uh and here's one of my favorite moments from that episode.
Over a one month period.
Fifty two people got sick with e. coli.
Were you freaking out?
Well
Freak I don't know if freaking out is the right uh the right way to describe it. Um
I mean it's just it was all encompassing. I mean it was it was like it was really intense
You know, no you wouldn't wish this on.
Anybody?
You know, that anyone would get sick from the food that that you serve them.
is w really a tough thing.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on Substack.
And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com.
Or call us at one eight hundred-433-1945.
1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you, and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.
This episode was produced by Chris Massini with music composed by Ramteen Arablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Katherine Seypher, Casey Herman, Carrie Thomson, Nor Gill, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Diva Grant, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Roz and you've been listening.
to how I built this.