The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Navigating Tariffs and Technology: Insights from Canada's Restaurant Guy, Jay Ashton
Navigating Tariffs and Technology: Insights from Canada's Restaurant Guy, Jay Ashton
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian is joined by Jay Ashton, known as Canada's Restaurant Guy. They delve into the non-political impact of regulations, especially tariffs, on the restaurant industry in both Canada and the U.S. Jay shares his extensive experience in the restaurant supply chain, discusses the potential severe impact of upcoming tariffs similar to or worse than COVID-19, and stresses the need for strategic planning. They also explore innovative revenue streams, the role of AI in restaurant management, and the importance of community and cooperation among restauranteurs. If you're looking for ways to future-proof your restaurant against economic uncertainties, this episode is filled with practical advice and unique insights.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:12 Meet Jay Ashton: Canada's Restaurant Guy
03:34 Impact of Tariffs on the Restaurant Industry
07:54 Strategies for Restaurants to Navigate Tariff Challenges
17:09 Exploring New Business Models and Revenue Streams
25:16 The Role of AI and Technology in Modern Restaurants
31:00 Conclusion and How to Stay Connected
This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.
Jeremy Julian:In today's episode, we are joined by Jay Ashton, who is affectionately known as the Canada's Restaurant Guy. He and I talk a lot about the ongoing political conversations related to Canada and the U. S., the tariffs. This is definitely not a political Um episode, but it does get into the impact of regulations and how regulations can impact the restaurants And the ways that they go about making money and the products that they sell Jay has a long history of working in lots of different areas of restaurants supply chain suppliers all over canada And he also hosts his own podcast and has a great newsletter that is very valuable to restaurant owners. So if you're not familiar with Jay, I would encourage you to listen to the entire episode, learn a little bit more about him and how he can help your business. If you're not familiar with me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I have been working in the restaurant tech space for over 25 years. And I also am the chief revenue officer for CBS North Star. We sell the Northstar point of sale solution for multi units. Check us out at cbsnorthstar. com and now onto the show. Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. as I say each and every time, I know that you guys have got lots of choices. So thank you guys for hanging out. those that are watching on video may recognize the face. I definitely, know that they'll see the name, floating around the socials. But Jay, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience and then we can jump into kind of some of the topics and what you've been up to the last couple of
Jay Ashton:Sure. also known as Canada's Restaurant Guy, I always laugh at
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. Canada's restaurant guy. Yep. Exactly. you're the Canadian. You're going to say a lot of A's
Jay Ashton:I try not to A it out too much, but yeah, so I'm from Canada. I've been in the industry 35 years. I've done everything, in the industry. I think there is, and I'm, in the last 20 years, I've been working with one of the largest distributors in the world and, been working with them on, Really helping businesses. So I've dedicated most of my career of helping restaurants and from everything in between in the space of restaurants or marketing to business and everything in between. And, I've been, doing a podcast as well, doing, podcast or our network. maybe one day I'll tell you, but, we do that as well. And, we've been doing that for five years. And, we just turned it into a media network, and we just, we also have four newsletters, it goes out every week. And, yeah, we got some pretty cool stuff happening over the next 2025.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah, no. And I know that's how we connected. I somehow got on the newsletter and then I got connected to you on LinkedIn and I'm like, holy crap, this guy's so prolific. He's got so much stuff out there, which is part of what had me reach out. And for the long time listeners, everybody knows that the real, my real passion is to help restaurants succeed. And that's part of why this show exists and, primarily wrapped around technology, but at the end of the day, the best tech in the world without the right systems and people in place doesn't matter, which What Jay and I talked about pre show when we were talking about what do we want to get into? So Jay, what's been on your mind? I, you and I talked pre show and you've got two or three things that have been resonating with you as it relates to both the Canadian market, which some of our listeners, we have some Canadian listeners, we have some international listeners over overseas, a lot of us space listeners, but what's been on your mind most recently, because I think it's going to have an impact on the restaurants, both domestically here in the States, as well as in Canada.
Jay Ashton:it's this tariff talk. I call it tariff talks because hopefully the percentages are not going to be what they are, but we're talking a lot about the tariffs right now and putting plans into place and working on strategies. And, it is right now that time of the season that everyone's busy. We got Christmas parties happening. It's a great time of the year. But I also just wrote this morning about what are you doing January 2nd? Probably haven't even thought of that. and that's okay. And I always believe that, it's hard to, always say things to the industry without being in the industry at that moment. and I get to work with a whole bunch of restaurants every day as well, but it is when you look at what that plan is and what these terrorists will do to our industry. We've got to have a plan. It's already seen our Canadian dollar drop quite a significantly amount in the last few days, just by the talk of tariffs and nothing happened. It certainly wrote our dollar quite a bit. so we need to be planning what we're going to be doing. Cause people are going to go out. We know we're going to have restaurants still. We're going to have to look at options. but right now, I think when you're going to look at the percentages that, hopefully don't come into our scope here, we're going to have a plan and that's going to have to be, I think on almost every corner of your business model. You may have to turn it upside down. So we need to prepare for that. And that's going to be very emotional. It's going to be very challenging for a lot of people and they're going to need, I always say every restaurant needs a coach and a podcast. but they're definitely going to need that support that's out there in the market or they're just not going to make it.
Jeremy Julian:So help me understand or help our listeners understand really, Jay, why is that tariff so impactful? even the tariff talk, what is the impact going to be to the Canadian market, because for those that either aren't super into politics, don't even know, like, how is that going to impact? Because I'm a, as a food distributor in your day job, I would assume that much of what. Products you guys are getting come from Canada, but it sounds like that might be part of the problem But I don't even know I guess I'll educate listeners as to why that impact is gonna be so great on the Canadian market because Though all of those border cities in the US are gonna also be impacted pretty significantly. I would guess about it, too
Jay Ashton:Yeah, there's a lot of talk around what's going to happen on both sides. Obviously, we get products in from the United States and also the United States, we trade products as well with the United States quite a bit. I forget, it's 2 point some billion a day. it's a significant amount of export and importing across the Canadian border. It's just going to drive inflation up in terms of the tax, right? that's all it is. It's a fancy way of saying the tax. And when you add tax on the goods, in or out, It's going to increase the cost on those products. No matter if we're sending so much across the border or receiving across the border, it's going to increase the overall cost of those products. And when most of those products can't be either grown up here or they're manufactured in the Canadian markets and manufacturing in the U S vice versa. We're literally going to see, and it's also going to impact the U S industry as well. It's going to also see an increase on both sides. So it's really, when you look at the tax percentage, when we look at adding two or 5 percent tax on things, it has a significant increase. a decrease in the use of those products, or, if it is fuel or whatever people travel less or the eat out less, we see all these impacts happening. But also drives our dollar down in the overall dollar of what it is. And when we're seeing that compared to the U. S. dollar, it's significantly dropping, which is not good. It is good in some circumstances when it comes to oil and gas in those areas, lumber, certain things, grain, all those things help when you look at, because we sell it in American dollars, right? So we do see a definitely a profit in that side, but the food products that are coming into the Canadian market, these things are going to be increasing in prices for restaurants out to a degree that we really just need to be prepared to be able to handle what that is. and just be ready to be able to work through it and plan through it. And it's also in the U S market as well as we will see, you will see increase on products. And I work at a lot of restaurants right now where we also believe that we're hit the ceiling in the menus pricing, right? Like we're ceiling. We're maxed no more.
Jeremy Julian:and I've seen more and more brands coming out with value propositions and trying to figure out how to get the consumers back. I just was reading articles this morning. So what do restaurants do? You talk about planning and you talk about them having to have a plan. What, again, I think some of the inflationary stuff that happened late 2023 and all through 2024, a lot of people didn't plan for it. And then. their food costs went up and they didn't know what to do. And they, they struggled to adjust quickly. We know that there's a potential for this to come. We don't know what it's going to look like come January, but what can they do? Do they change their menu selection? Do they highlight separate different products? Help, help walk through some of the things that you're coaching, some of your suppliers and some of your restaurant brands to even think about. Because again, pizza food costs is different than steak food costs. Steak food costs is different than, than chicken wings. And Help us understand what it is that you're talking to different restauranteurs
Jay Ashton:I think if we can look at a more of a macro model here. So when we look at the overall business, I think a lot of restaurants are gonna have to make a decision. Is this the model that we want? do we switch the overall business model? It's that significant. When we look at the percentage on the amount of tariff that we're looking at, it's that big of a deal. That's what I'm saying is it's not just a 5%. Oh, we'll just change the menu prices or we'll look at it, in a few of your product or whatever the case is. It's actually so significant that we have to make business decisions on the overall business structure or model or strategy, and that might be where, okay, we may have to become this kind of model going forward, or we may have to reduce hours. We have to look at not just doing foot traffic or not having foot traffic or takeout. All these two things, when you look at the overall business structure, will have to be reviewed and looked at and made a decision if it goes forward, and that is by running your numbers and looking at what you can do, what the market will bear, and what you're going to have to do to survive. You will have to look at everything. It's not just your menu. It's not R& D on new products. It's not looking at your overall labor cost, all these different costs that we talk about all the time. It's going to have to be everything, absolutely everything. And it's going to come down to, do you have to reinvent yourself again? And I think when you look at some of the talks right now, and I just saw this article this morning as well, around innovation, I always say is when people start talking innovation, worry. Because that means that either we're going to see products in fire,
Jeremy Julian:going to be a force
Jay Ashton:to be a fourth page coming, right? And you see this there in the camera. I was like, okay, here comes the innovation train. and I don't know in a sense, and this is what's keeping me up a little bit is the in, in, in innovation space right now. When you look at it, I don't know what else we can innovate. I don't know. I think like when we went through COVID, there was a lot of innovation in a sense of, new revenue streams or new opportunities, or we had government relief programs, all these things came into the marketplace, but you look at it today, I don't know if those things are going to happen in a sense because it's so devastating. So we just need to have a, when I say plan, we need to make some critical decisions if we need to pull that rope and go into that lifeline or that survival mode because we all know that restaurants go into survival mode. It's a tough, it's a tough battle when you don't have a plan. And we just need to make sure, and I always say planning is perfect, and you don't need to use it if you don't need to use it, but at least you're sitting there without stopping, because most places are going to react on the 21st or 22nd, and based on what I'm hearing, the significant increase in what it's going to do, Will be pretty much overnight. So it's not a slow burn. It's going to be a quick one and it's going to be fast and it's going to be quite hard on us that we need to make sure that we're, we've got a plan B in place. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do to move forward. and I actually think. also incorporating AI into your business model right now is critical. And I say that based on you're going to have to use the smartest guy in the room to help support you. And I think using AI as, I have, right now we have the rest of AI, the restaurant AI coach right now that we have for, for what I do. and I use it, I've loaded everything I can into it that it brings in knowledge. but it is in a sense right now where we need to use all those lifelines. In planning,
Jeremy Julian:and you had said, yeah, you had said to me, Jay, in the, in, before we hit the record button, that you think that this has the opportunity to be even a larger impact than COVID. I guess tease that out for just a second for our audience. Cause I, I think they're going to be sitting here listening, going, that guy's so full of crap. He's just some crazy ass Canadian that doesn't know what he's talking about. And I'd love for you to tease that out because I think it's going to go into the last part of our conversation, which is really what other things can they do? Exploring different business models and how can they adopt tech to, to help with some of these things? But why do you think it has the opportunity to be even more impactful than COVID? And,
Jay Ashton:because I think the thing is that one similar to COVID in a sense, it's going to overall hit all industries, right? It's not just going to, cone in on one, one area. I do have a theory though, that we may see a flip in a certain area that may cause it to not be so devastating. And we'll talk about carbon tax in a second that we have here where the government is in place to have an environmental tax on carbon for us, where we have added it into a lot of goods and a lot of things and our gas prices and everything else. There might be an opportunity because the opposition right now in the Canadian government is if they do get elected, which most likely in the polls, it looks like they will, will remove that carbon tax. I don't know if that carbon tax, the percentage of what the tax has been because it's been incremental over the last couple of years. is that enough? If we remove that to off balance the 25 percent tariff tax, it might be, or might not make it so abusive, right? our industry. So when I look at a comparison to the COVID world, COVID, there was a lot of relief programs that were out there. There was a lot of, in a sense, people going out to support the industry because it was taken away from us. And I think when you take things away, People want it, right? Like it's just, I want that back. It's important to me. they're not taking it.
Jeremy Julian:and restaurants oftentimes are the lifeblood of a community. And
Jay Ashton:Hundred percent.
Jeremy Julian:a lot of people were going out and
Jay Ashton:Yeah. I wanna go out and support it. I need that in my community. That's my life. That's where I go and work. now they're having it. It's still there, but they can't afford it. That's a different world. That's a different take. And that's a different mindset. And I think when you look at the psychol psychology of the person that's gonna go out and dying in these places, go going, I'd love to go and support you. I just can't do it. I think it's a lot harder. In a sense to understand that. And then we also had a lot of people that were actually banking a lot of money, through COVID because they weren't traveling as much, They were, bringing an income still all these different things that were happening. So there was some savings happening. in the market, but it was devastating. Don't get me wrong. It was incredibly devastating. I just believe that this might be a little bit worse, in a sense. Now I do believe that if we all rallied together, I was a part of the committee that put together a national program here in Canada that got people dining out on Wednesdays. And it was about creating a community amongst the whole overall industry to say, get out on Wednesdays and dine out. I was a part of a concert across Canada. It was a virtual concert as well with rock stars and all these cool things. And we built a really a Wednesday where it actually impacted the industry so much in the Canadian market. We actually saw sales go up in restaurants on Wednesdays that worked on that community. I've written a lot about the new community. I didn't know it was going to be this more important. I don't have a crystal ball, but I wrote recently over the last few months about the importance of creating community in 2025. It had nothing to do with tariffs. It just was looking at how to really leverage and collaborate amongst each other more than ever. And I saw that just in a position of, really a new way of looking at cloud, I guess working with each other within your community, but not as a community as we see it. it's not a physical local community. It's more or less either an online community or a community amongst our brands or how we support each other and move forward. So I saw that with some of the restaurants I coach, is actually seeing some competitors back 10 years ago would be competing. What do you want to sit in the same room to actually getting on social media and promoting each other's brand in the same town? I've never seen that before. I think it was incredible. so when you look at those kind of things as we move forward into this year, I think community is going to be very strong. I think you're going to have to do it. I think you're going to have to get behind, your local restauranteurs in your community that do the same thing you do and get that community built and look at ways to support each other. And that's, shared marketing. Shared resources, shared services, always supporting each other on social as a shared community, working with the media in your local community, because traditional media, as much as we believe the social world is very powerful. Guess what? There's still boots on the ground and impounding the pavement, as I call it, is still important as well. there's a lot of these things that we still need to look at within our own areas and our own influences, but supporting each other is going to be a big one.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah, I love that, that thought. And I think it's, something that we all need to be thinking about. And we've had lots of guests on them in the past that talk about building a local community. So you know who your guests are, so you know when they came in. Put things out to them to know when they came, when they didn't come. Jay, you talked about it and your, your thoughts, when you were talking about kind of the impact about exploring different business models, what does that mean to you? Is that, and we've talked about virtual brands. it's all through COVID lots of people spun up, they spun up third party delivery, they spun up first party delivery. We've had guests on that have talked about how they can offer first party delivery, but not staffing up. So is it stuff like that? Is it creating virtual? Is it changing your service model from full service to fast casual? Is it all of that? Is that kind of what you're talking about when you talk about exploring those different business models and why? Why change? Is it just because the impact is going to be so great that you've got to evaluate labor savings and food cost savings and packaging savings and all of those
Jay Ashton:Yeah, I think you're going to have to look at all those areas, right? You're going to have to make the decision, like I said, knowing your numbers. In the Canadian market, we have, this will blow your mind, there's still 80 percent of restaurants in Canada that don't have their menus costed out. 80 percent still don't have their menus costed out. And I trust me, that's a real number. So when you look at that, we need to know your costs, your cost models, all those areas, but we need to know to make those decisions. And that also is on your menus, which is the most profitable items, all these things that we need to do. Those are the things we talk about looking at your business models. Is it a right decision? With the ability to use AI today, we can actually even use in a visual format where Is it the right decision to even have your restaurant in the right spot where you have it today, right? this is based on more of a, a traffic format or looking at demographics within the areas. So it might even be in the right spot. It might even be in the right format that you have the table set out in your restaurant. All these things need to be looked at and using AI is going to help you with all that. It's going to speed it up as well. and make, in a sense, not make the final decision, but help you make the final decision for yourself. but I think when you look at the overall business models that I work with, is that we teach, right now, five to six new revenue streams. And I believe every restaurant, and that does not include takeout. So we look at new revenue streams for restaurants. And when I look at the opportunities that are out there, and I think when you look at that community, can you leverage that community to help support you in these new revenue streams, right? Like I have one location we're working on a micro butchered model. So we're incorporating a butcher model into the restaurant, which is a micro size format. Butcher shops in Canada right now are hot. busy. we d always at the grocery sto it still at a location. S we create a micro butche I have that happening righ Cookbooks, journals, we did a journal the other day format. and we're going to increase revenue by 50, 000 a year by a restaurant, just doing journals every year that people buy journals through Amazon e commerce, those kinds of models. it's interesting by. They don't know how to do these things. So you have to look at how to make it really simple for them to do, which is good. but I look at it, how many dishes do you have to sell? Because in Canada, our profit margins per dollar is about four to 5%, if you're doing things right? So that's, most restaurants are running, their profit around that percentage. So when you look at that percentage and you're banking, 50, 000 more a year. You have to sell a lot of bloody dishes at that 5 percent a dollar to make up, 50, 000 in pure profit. So we did that. we're currently working with one location to launch a newsletter, and that one's around 70, 000 a year, I think it is. And profit to introduce a newsletter to the community by selling advertisements within the community. I would say I don't know if you guys had this in the US market, but in Canada We used to have way back in the day. Maybe you remember them, but the menus with the Advertisings they used to be on the remember the Paper things.
Jeremy Julian:The paper, like at the
Jay Ashton:yeah. There's all the things around.
Jeremy Julian:they'd have the placemats
Jay Ashton:Yeah, the placemat, that's what
Jeremy Julian:the placemats.
Jay Ashton:got. All the placemats. So we took that concept of, geez, let's do that into a newsletter. And let's sell advertisement the same kind of way, right? we did the same thing. we looked at that model as well, and that's I think that was 70 some thousand as well. So my goal by the end of this year, which is only a couple weeks away, is to generate a million dollars and for a restaurant without selling another dish in revenue.
Jeremy Julian:That's incredible. one of the things that you'd said earlier, Jane, I'd love, you're an example of this. And obviously if people are listening to the show, they're investing in themselves and investing in trying to make their business better. But one of the things that I hear is a theme amongst everything you've said is they're asking for help from people that have already been there and done that, whether it's a coach or it's a supplier partner. I happen to be at a partner. At a customer's conference earlier this year, I talked to the guy that supplies this brand with their chicken. And he walked me through the 25 different types of chicken tenders that they make at the chicken factory. And I'm like, Holy smokes. He's I can tell you exactly what percentage of breading this brand has versus that brand. And I'm like, when I said to Matt, I'm like, Matt. That's impossible. He's no, I'm telling you, man, that's why the chicken tenders at this brand tastes different than the chicken tenders that brand, because we design it and we work with them based on what it is that the brand is looking for. explore that idea, Jay, because I think what I'm hearing you say is you do these things to help restaurants succeed, whether you're getting, getting the supplier side of it or not, because at the end of the day, if they're successful. They're going to buy more product. They're going to buy more product. They're going to help the community more, but asking for help and partnering with people, both in the community, as well as in some of your supplier partners is a huge piece of what it is that you guys are looking to do.
Jay Ashton:Yeah, I really, why do I do this is the question is why I do all these things and it's, I've been through some ugly situations in restaurants or running restaurants, and I always say is you don't know how to, you don't know you're a true restauranteur until you pay your staff with your visa.
Jeremy Julian:Yep.
Jay Ashton:you see those challenges that really is not a fun time. To deal with and you go through a lot of different things. We know restaurants have the highest divorce rates as well and all these different things that comes with this. If I can just make it a little bit less hard on people that are hardworking and really are out there trying to do their ideas and their passion. Like when we start, when I coach with restaurants right now, we sit down with them. And the first thing I always ask him is what their dreams are and what their dreams were. for their businesses. And a lot of them are touched by that in a sense, they all have a dream. They all have a dream to either create a wealth or, a way of generating money for the family or a better life for themselves or better life for their kids. And all these things are passion. Also to take care of people and to feed people and to give them an experience. All those things are so rooted in them that me, I, I 20 some years ago, It's starting to see how hard that is and seeing how hard it is today without having that support channel there with you, it's too difficult and I couldn't sit back and watch people struggle and the industry means so much to me. It saved me as a young kid and all these different things that honestly, I have to give back and it's like my goal and. it's really important that I see places. It's and it also is good. Like it, it's
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. It's good for community. It's good for the lives of the people that you
Jay Ashton:for us too. It's, it feels so good. And nothing I get more excited is watching people change their lives around or allow or them giving us the ability to actually touch their lives in a way that most people wouldn't like, giving someone, ability to look at menus. I always say you're really touching someone's mortgage, your paychecks, people's paychecks, people's lives. They allow you to touch that menu. That's pretty sacred ground, right? So I really take all those different touch points and really look at it more in the sense of a privilege and a privilege to be able to provide what I know. And over the years I've been doing this and I've coached thousands of places and just being able to give that back. is what I, I really enjoy doing. And like you said, the yellow taste of it, it's this feels good. I like this. I like this. I like this. And you want to get into this whole servant model of being a leader.
Jeremy Julian:thank you for the contribution. one last idea, one last thread, Jay, that we talked about pre show was the use of technology. You alluded to AI, you alluded to investing both in yourself and in the tools that you use to help your business be better guests on the show. Hundreds of shows now on restaurant technology guys. So there's lots of different tech out there. Where do you see people have, have, the most timidity and, or the least ability to adopt that change? And where would you suggest people at least consider? Because I think it's one of those things that there's so much, and so many restauranteurs, they get, paralyzed by fear of doing anything. thing, and so they do nothing. And unfortunately their neighbor that didn't get paralyzed by that fear is already implementing AI to give them answers is already using the tools that are out there for marketing automation, to get new guests in, to talk to their guests on a regular basis, whatever those things are, where do you see the biggest opportunity for brands to flexible enough? To pivot when things like this tariff thing or COVID or any of these other things happen, where do you see them needing to invest their time, money, and energy in 2025 and beyond to help themselves and their business to be better? Yeah.
Jay Ashton:from a restaurant perspective, like what they could do is just start playing with AI. Like I think when you start understanding the power of AI, and I believe every, like every restaurant that I work with, they all download the app, ChowGBT, and they all get an assistant, and they all name it. And they work with that assistant, and it's more or less trying to, it's definitely baby steps into getting them to work into this model of one believing that the content that's being produced is actually, really, reliable and it's important and it's good stuff and getting them to get comfortable with getting that assistant. Most restaurateurs have never had an assistant or a business coach or support mechanism in a sense to help them through decisions or choices and what they've done. Most restaurants are based on gut experience or gut instinct, or I've always done it this way. Or, I learned through this way. No one's really had that. So I always look at restaurants investing in an AI assistant to help you get through some of the challenges you have, or just to make decisions or help you flush out ideas, talk to it, have a conversation with it, challenge it. I think that's the start and then get into other systems. I think the one thing that we're looking here in Canada is if every restaurant can just adapt, adopt one new technology into their business this year, being AI or not will be a win, win in the space. I think putting your head in the stand and going, it's not there. It doesn't, I don't need it is a, is not a really great decision. I think businesses need to adapt to it and its ability to. Make decisions faster, reduce costs, reduce labor, all these factors. When you look in having to revisit that model of the business world, we have to turn upside down lucky enough that AI came into our world at this time. because without it, a lot of people wouldn't have a lot of things they have today already from what AI has done that, the strategic marketing and better content, all these different things, but it came at the right time kind of thing, right? I don't know if it's, ironically, we're getting an AI, a superpower, person or AI, I always say person, but AI support person, during a time that we really need it. Like it's interesting, right? not that we wouldn't in the past, but this one, I think there's someone's telling us that you need this versus what's going to come. And I think when you look at restaurants, just adapting to some of the systems that are out there. And I think David Hopkins, he's a consultant up here in Canada. He always says, you really don't need the F1 formula car for your restaurant. You may just need the regular Ford, right? Like it's just, it's, you just sometimes don't need that over thing. And I tell you, he is more than right with that statement is just, you don't need the fancy stuff as much as it's wow. And it's really cool. Restaurants don't go out of business because of their food. They go out of business. Typically, I think it's 97 percent because of the back of how we've ran it and how it's business and the structure, the marketing, everything else. so I think we really need to look at technology to help us with that space that we really are not, unfortunately not experts at, right? Like typically I would say a business school, they usually tell you not to run a restaurant. So it's not too, I go to business school in our industry.
Jeremy Julian:and there's a guy that I know that I heard a quote that I love to re quote, which is, the superpower in today's day and age is not what you learned in the past, but it's to unlearn what you learned in the past and relearn. And I think AI is one of those opportunities for us to learn. you've never been able to build a marketing plan. So as the AI, can you give me five different marketing plans to market my business? And it's going to give you five different examples, and now you can choose the one or choose parts of each of them. Never at a time in the past when it was just Google. You'd type that in and you'd get 27 different pages and you'd have to click through each of them versus give me five of the best marketing plans for a restaurant, give me the best ways to lay out a kitchen, give me the best way, what are the top trending food categories in Western Canada this month, and it'll be able to produce this stuff for you to be able to make you so much smarter than your peers versus gut feel, which is all too often
Jay Ashton:Yeah, it's interesting, and I think there, I think it's always comes at the right time. As well, I think we have to embrace it and to really just play with it in a sense, just have some fun.
Jeremy Julian:and it'll help you. it's amazing when you put stuff in there. Like I get blown away because I was not a lead adopter. I did the same thing you talked about, but the more I've been spending time with, and I'm like, holy crap, it's amazing how much more I can get done with the same timeframe, because it'll help me learn and take me on a path. So much faster. Then I could do it by watching a bunch of YouTube videos or reading a whole bunch of a whole bunch of articles that have been posted. So I love that idea.
Jay Ashton:Perfect.
Jeremy Julian:Awesome. Jay, how do people stay in touch? How do people subscribe to the newsletter? How do they get to the podcast? how do they stay in the, in the rest, Canada's restaurant guy, network.
Jay Ashton:so you can join me on our newsletters every week. We write four newsletters, three newsletters, one email blast. so you can go on LinkedIn, look under Canada's restaurant guy on LinkedIn. we have, the Canada's restaurant guy news that goes out every week. We also have an AI newsletter and then we also have one school safe restaurants as well. So those go out every week. Newest on Apple, Spotify, everywhere. Just Google late night restaurant network or show and you'll find all of our content. We're up on YouTube as well. And we just, we try to produce as much content as we can to help the industry.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. And, I say it all the time. If you can't find Jay, then you've got some other problems. You probably shouldn't be jumping into chat GPT, but Jay Ashton's his name. Go search him up on LinkedIn and he's very prolific at posting stuff. Jay, thank you for doing what you're doing to save restaurants to help them. I love, I love the synergies that we have both between the two shows and, I'm close to 30 years. You're a little bit, a little bit longer, even in restaurant space, but at the end of the day, They are the heartbeat of what it is that we do. anything we can do to help them. So thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for sharing your ideas to our listeners, guys. thank you guys for spending time with us and make it a great day.
