Beyond the Chair: Bringing Hospitality into Dentistry | Justin Morel of Toptable Group

Dr. El Chaar is joined by Justin Morel, Chief Operating Officer of Toptable Group, the acclaimed hospitality company behind some of Canada’s premier restaurants and two standout New York City destinations, Oceans and Carlotto. Together, they dive into what truly makes an experience magical: empathy, anticipation, leadership, consistency, and creating moments that make people feel seen and cared for.

From the definition of hospitality to lessons from Unreasonable Hospitality, generational shifts in the workforce, AI’s impact on service, and how to inspire the next generation — this conversation bridges two worlds with surprising similarities.

If you’re passionate about patient experience, leadership, or hospitality at its highest level, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Good evening and welcome to a new episode of the Dr. Char Podcast. Beyond the Chair, bringing hospitality into dentistry, Merriam Webster defines hospitality as the generous and friendly treatment of guests and visitors. Luis Jour describes hospitality in the encyclopedia as the virtue of a great soul that cares for the whole universe through the ties of humanity.

It's deep. I like that Many people associate hospitality only with hotels and restaurants. But that raises an interesting question. Can healthcare and particularly dentistry be considered a branch of hospitality? Dr. Brian Williams, a keynote speaker, describes healthcare as the highest form of hospitality.

In his view, both fields are centered on caring for people, providing comfort, and creating a positive experience. Healthcare organizations are increasingly embracing hospitality principles such as patient centeredness, empathy, high quality service to elevate the overall patient experience and wellbeing.

Tonight I am joined by an exceptional guest, Justin Morrell. He is the Chief Operating Officer of Top Table Group, which based in Vancouver, the group operates multi high-end restaurants across Canada and two in New York City, oceans and carto and oceans. I am so addicted to it. Thank you, Justin, for taking the time and joining me on this podcast.

Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. Yeah, it is a great pleasure. Let's get to know you. So tell us, how did you 

end up in hospitality? My hospitality story is a little bit different than the average person. It was never the first career that I thought I would go into. Yeah. I stumbled into it in a unique way and I fell in love with it really early on.

My first career, I worked for an investment bank and I was doing qualitative quantitative research on publicly traded companies. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So very different from what you would think hospitality is, but I had the opportunity to cover publicly traded restaurants for my last 16, 17 months at the bank.

And during that time, my best friend who started a tech company as a senior project at MIT and went to Boston University. We're not gonna hold it against you. Yeah, fair enough. We were living together at the time post-college. He did a, as a senior project, he did a group project to, to basically write a business plan for a tech company.

And his professor thought it was an excellent idea and decided to bring them in front of actual investors. And they got two rounds of funding to grow the company. And ultimately, as the company grew, his lack of experience let him out of the company. So he said to me, Hey, I wanna open a restaurant. And I looked at him and said, are you crazy?

Do either of us have any idea of what we're doing at restaurants, aside from me working as a busboy at the local clam shack in my hometown? One summer. So we found a chef, we found an operating partner. And we really built this restaurant with our own hands from the ground up. And I was still working at the bank at the time and helping, going after work, eight at nine o'clock at night.

Building things, putting chairs together, putting tables together before we opened and helping out in any way I could and trying to help put some systems in place for the, for running of the business, making sure that we can pay the vendors that we were using, get more importantly, get the team paid.

'cause that's the most important thing. And the restaurant opened and it was wildly successful. And after, I don't know, eight or nine months of still working at the bank, I decided to leave my job there and go directly into the restaurants and learn from my partners in the business there, from the ground up.

They had the restaurant experience, the two of them. And they put me through all the paces. Two weeks as a busboy, two weeks as a host, two weeks as a sushi chef. 'cause it was a sushi restaurant. 

That didn't go so well. But nonetheless, I learned a lot. Interesting. And shortly after being there I really fell in love with the connection with the people you're working with, your team, the connection with your guests.

So we continued on that path and I ultimately was running the restaurant for two years. And I got to meet a lot of incredible people coming into the restaurant because, they really set it up. They found a niche in the market in the early two thousands of this very fun hip sushi restaurant with excellent quality food excellent atmosphere and energy.

And it appealed to a wide range of people and small restaurant, 50 seats really. And we had a lot of people coming in from the city. It was a destination restaurant. We had a lot of industry people coming in and I met a lot of people working in the hospitality industry through that and made a lot of connections that really opened the door for the future for me.

And, it's really, I was the immediate connection with people that you can see who come into the restaurant, the immediate satisfaction or sometimes not. And you've gotta, you've gotta work with those people to make sure that they have a great experience at the end of the day. And that was really rewarding for me, and that's ultimately why I decided to continue to work in hospitality and fell in love with it more importantly.

Exactly. That's the word. Falling in love with something. Yeah. It's important. You have to love what you do, I think makes a huge difference. You can, there's a genuine care there when you love doing what you do every day. And that's, I, that's important I think for any business really.

It shows to the people you're, 

yeah, no, you are absolutely right. And that's the beauty of falling in love with something because a job like yours, it's opposite than anybody else. You start in the evening or even you do the lunch shift and then you finish late at night and then it starts all over again.

And so it can affect the relationship and families not spending time and so on and so forth. Having said that about passion and stuff, we're gonna talk back about passion later on. How do you define hospitality in your organization? Is hospitality a generic word or Everybody has their own touch to it and 

Yeah I think there's a, like you said earlier, there's a, there are definitions of hospitality, miriam Webster and all that. But I think it means different things to different people. And for us, it's, there's five, key pillars that we define hospitality as in, in our group. And that I firmly believe in and live by every day. And the first one is being genuine, right?

Being empathetic starts with how you treat your team. It's, and it continues through the guest experience. When the guest feels that you're genuine about what you're bringing to the table then they feel at ease at what you're doing. It becomes a harmonious rhythm that carries out through the dining room.

Teamwork is another huge part of what we do. And it's ultimately, it's a shared mindset, right? Where we're all helping each other out day in and day out. We care for what we do. And that helps to drive consistency, which is the third pillar of what that is. Consistency is key in any business, and for us it's.

We want people to bring their own personality to the table. That's, I think what sets the experience a bit different for each, but the service aspect of it, which is the technical side of bringing the guests what they need, when they need it, or before they need it, is consistent across across the experience for everybody.

That's what keeps the consistency high. And that's key, that's important. And then personal touches make a big difference. Yeah. Ultimately, that's how we, you and I got to know each other. Indeed, right? Indeed, yes. Yeah. Having the ability to take the experience to different places for every different guest is important. We have a lot of people coming in, all of our restaurants and while we mostly o operate.

Higher end fine dining, approachable style restaurants. We also operate five cafes, which are quite different Sure. In their approach to hospitality and how, and the culture is a little bit different too, and how we apply the culture. I it that personal difference, the person coming in for, with four guests for a business dinner, they may not want a lot of personal touches, but the person who walks in for a celebration, an anniversary, or a birthday, those are different.

And for the people you build relationships with, those touches are even different. Absolutely. You can build trust with them. What they like. If I know somebody likes sparkling water before they walk in the door, I don't have to ask them the question of what kind of water they want.

Exactly. Our team doesn't, and that, that makes a big difference. 'cause I think in, in, in anything there's, especially in a place like New York, there's a lot of competition. Correct. And I think what sets. Each place apart is how the person you're servicing, who walks in our guests is what we call them.

It is, it makes a big difference. It's how you treat them in the end. There's a lot of choices in New York City's a lot of great restaurants. There's a lot of dentists in New York City. Yeah, exactly. And it's how you make them feel. Yeah. And some people may walk in with, an uncertain attitude about that, about their day even, or about the restaurant.

And it we have the unique ability to improve somebody's day. The minute they walk in the door. Correct. And that's the biggest difference that we try to work on every day in all of our restaurants. We don't know how somebody's day went before they walked in. Exactly. Exactly. And if we can make their day just a little bit better, that's a win for us.

And 

will be the retention. Yes. They come back again and again. Exactly. It's and that's, this is where I want the listeners to hear that. 'cause you say, Edgar talking about hospitality in dentistry it, it is because we have repeat patients come back. Yeah. Over and over. They are afraid.

You they're coming for a nice time for food. Yeah. But they're, who wants to come to a dentist, I was gonna mention this. Exactly. So if you give them that personal touch as you are talking about Yeah. And be consistent in the treatment and in the way you greet them. Make them feel ghost falls in the same spirit.

Agreed. Yeah. It's not that that different, it's the only difference is the fear coming and 

here is a, yeah, I, I'll give you my dad and as an example, I personally, I don't mind going to dentist. It's a relaxing moment for me, even in the worst of times. 'cause I have a lot of trust and a dentist.

My dad is completely fearful and he avoids the dentist at all costs unless he knows that he has to go. And he probably had a poor experience when he was young, correct? Yes. And I think in any business, relationship building is key in order to build, that client or that guest to come back in.

Correct. And, that happens in a lot of ways in any business. And even for us with the vendors that we use, who supply us with, whether it's. Our, some of our food vendors or, our technology vendors, we asked for their commitment to, to provide great support and service for us, because that's what we're trying to do every single day for the, for not only our team members, most importantly our team members, but the guests as well.

Yeah. But see, if they are a patient or they are a guest, they don't understand what it takes to make every event happen. The back backstory backdoor story. The backstage story. People don't understand how much it takes to get the right team, get them to do the right job, get the suppliers to provide you when they have something very important, very good.

And stuff on time. So that's there's a lot that goes into it. Indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. So basically. We covered the core principles basically without even calling the core principles of your of how you make this a magical moment for anybody to come in. Agreed. There's anything else you got to, to 

Yeah, to add to it, you, me, you mentioned it, people in restaurants and what I do, there's so many people on our team that make a guest experience excellent.

That the guest never sees. It could start with the person or the team of people who clean the restaurant every day. You, that doesn't just happen miraculously. I can tell you when we go home at the end of the night when the last guest leaves the place looks a lot different when you turn the lights on than it does when the lights are dim.

Indeed. Yeah. And then when you come in the next day and the first guest walks in the door, it's back to being spotless. I'm 

glad that you brought this up, because we don't give enough gratitude to the people who clean the same thing. I have my cleaning lady that comes every night. I know her now for 20 years.

She comes every night and we leave. She starts, she does two, three hours and then yeah, we come back in the morning fresh and clean and all of that. 

Yes. But you might notice if she's not feeling well one day and she can't come in and then everybody else has to pick up, oh my God. It's every, everybody goes, wow, this is, yeah.

That's, I didn't realize how 

much 

work 

it is. It is. Yeah, it is. It is. And we. And we are, our office is not like your restaurant huge. It's it takes a lot Yeah. To do it. So yeah. 

But even the smallest details matter in that instance, it's for us, you might be in the space every day, for, you're there five days a week and you might not notice the one light that's out. But I can assure you that's one of the first things that a guest is gonna notice when they walk in the door. And then they wonder, okay, who's not paying attention to these things? They can, not every guest, but there's, the occasional guest who starts to think about these things.

Well, 

if they're slacking on this, how they're slacking on the other things. Exactly. But that goes back also in our offices, is the, not only the cleanability is the maintenance of the offices. Yes. The scratches, the, this, the, that patients are sitting, waiting in the waiting room. They notice everything they can.

Yeah. That's for sure. You're. You're right. And then that translate into are they upkeeping everything else? Yeah. It's a small, 

yeah, 

exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So

in dentistry, we have patient that come and they're paying out of pocket. So they expect a great experience that begins from the moment they arrive till the goal inside and how they're greeted and taking care of them to the delivery of the clinical treatment. Every step matters. Now, if we compare to you, same story, same thing as we just mentioned that, and we're gonna keep remitting the same thing, comes to dine, they are paying top money, fine dining.

It's not that cheap anymore. And the prices have went up. No. And it's funny how the prices, if we went up from, in the last few years. Yeah. Post COVID. Yeah. Past post COVID. It is tremendous. Significant. Significant. Yeah. So because of that, they expect to be welcomed warmly and served exceptional food.

Right? 

Yeah. 

I want to get something in return. Yeah. So 

they have to feel value in the experience at the end of 

the day. So that goes back to the value in the treatment. Yeah. And so on and so forth. So how can you orchestrate the, this is what's so important. So there is the operational and the business part, and then there is also the execution of it.

Of course. That falls into your operation. Yeah. So it is a big orchestra that you have to put in. Huge. Yeah. So how did you train on it? What are the advices that you can give people to learn how to do it? Because we are orchestrating the same thing. So I'm curious to to 

learn from you.

Yeah. It takes time. I don't think you can walk into a restaurant as a new person and expect to learn everything in any business in a week or two weeks. For us it's, we're always seeking how we can improve even the smallest of details. And I think that commitment for all of us to slow to improve even just a little bit every day makes a big difference.

In what we do. A lot of restaurants call themselves families. Every day at I a set time and our restaurant is four o'clock, we all sit down to a meal together and we call it family meal as a lot of restaurants do, and personally, while we spend a lot of time with each other, and it can feel like family.

I don't like it as to call it a family because. Family dynamics are always strange, right? There's always a favorite child and this person gets away with everybody and there's arguing amongst the children and people play favorites. And we're not like that. I think we're more like a team and part of the culture that we instill is the culture of winning.

And it's the smallest moments at times that lead to the biggest moments, and it's a constant drive to improve. And so many people, like I said earlier, have an impact on the guest experience. And, we set it up each night to be successful by going through and understanding who's walking through our doors, whether it's you 

make a huddle, basically.

Yeah. Every 

day for 20 minutes before we open the doors. We talk about the, we do it separately as a management team. We look through all the reservations, we see when, if the guest has been there before, if they haven't been there before. And if they have been when it was the last time they came tell us 

about this.

There's you flagged them. Do you put like a Yes, of course. Ah, that's interesting. I think 

it's, IM, we, not to say we treat anybody different because we don't, but if a guest is coming for the first time, we want to get to know them a little bit more. What are the things that they're looking for?

What brought them into the restaurant in the first place? How we can deliver a better guest experience for them. Whether they like a certain cocktail made a specific way or, they prefer sparkling water or still water or wherever. How that is. If they ask for anything different than what's maybe executed normally we take notes on that.

If they order certain types of wine, we make notes of that. So that way. If they do come back, and we hope that they do, that we can better suit their needs when they return. And that goes into creating, a place of comfort for them where they know exactly what they're gonna receive when they walk in.

And I think, you mentioned it earlier, costs have gone up. And I think a lot of people will tell you that one of the biggest challenges in anything is the rising cost. However, I think it's not necessarily the costs that are the challenge. It's how do you deliver an exceptional guest experience that the, those people find value in that experience.

In that experience. Exactly. 'Cause there's it's not always about. You can go to McDonald's and find value in McDonald's because it's an inexpensive, comparatively. 

Yeah. 

But, what is it as a team that we bring to the table to, to make that guest experience stronger every time?

And because that goes back to the value of the spending that they're gonna do. 

Yeah. 

If they want to, if you want to call it, for lack of a better word, return on investment. 

Yeah, exactly. 

I wanted to spend a luxury thing. I want to have a good time, but I want to have in return, high end experience.

Yeah. Service, hospitality, it's same thing when they come to the dentist. If they're gonna be. Grumpy and pushy and attitude. They will not come back. There's so many other dentists, so many other restaurants, and they try. Yeah. Look, 

I, I, I had a doctor here in the city for a long time who was very curt, right?

And he was very matter of fact, which was fine. But ultimately I decided to go somewhere else where that doctor showed a little bit more empathy and explained things to me in better, easier to understand terms for me, correct? Yes. It makes a lot of difference. It makes a huge difference.

And I felt more comfortable walking in the door, less maybe. Stressed, maybe anxious is the right word. And in my, the dentist I see now they walk in, they recognize me by name and I don't even go there that much, thankfully. It's just for cleanings. Yeah. But they're like, Hey Justin, how are you?

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

And it puts you at ease when you walk in the door. Sure. It 

makes a huge difference. 

Yeah. Yeah. Whether you call in to make a reservation and that person's warm and kind to you and genuine, enthusiastic. Or when you walk in the door and you see your team at the front door and they may recognize you by name or even say welcome back 'cause they recognize your face from being in there two weeks ago.

It makes a difference. 

And we are gonna get to that actually. And in in, in a bit. That's a, it can be a cliche question, but I like it. In hospitality culture. Or any culture for the matter of business, basically, huh? They say that everything starts from the top and from the top it goes down. Like I said, it's cliche, but it's true. It's 

true.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So how do you lead by example? 

Yeah. I think number one, I think it does start from the top. And number two, I pride myself on leading by example. I'll never ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't do. I'll give you a weird example, but a couple of weeks ago, I was at the restaurant late on Friday night.

I probably left at midnight, which is a little bit later than normal for me. And I went, I was in early the next day around 11:00 AM and I walked into the bathroom and the toilet was one foot moved from where it should be, right? Wow. And I thought to myself how does that happen? It was completely disconnected from the floor.

I'm thinking, okay, what are we gonna do about it? But ultimately I went to Home Depot and got the parts and remounted the toilet because I'd rather have a working bathroom, that extra bathroom in that, in instance than to not on a busy Saturday night. So we made it happen, it's for me, I spend a lot of times in the restaurants.

Yes, at the end of the day it's a business, but without long term. If you don't, if we don't take care of the team that we have working with us and the guests, then the business is only there short term. And I think we all realize that. Absolutely. So I'm constantly, working with my teams, my leaders together we talk one-on-one every week, and as a group, we meet senior leadership if each restaurant meets every two weeks together.

Yeah. And we learn from each other. We talk about our successes, maybe some things that aren't working too, so that we can all learn from each other and we're always learning together. And, for me that's a big it's an important thing for me is to continue to learn and develop myself as we develop as we develop the restaurant group. And, we've had the opportunity to grow over the last four years since I've joined the group, we've opened seven new restaurants and cafes. And that's not possible without. Strong leadership team and a strong culture.

Absolutely. And it's I'm also thankful to the, to ownership of our group. 'cause they really do give us the resources that we need to succeed in many ways. And they're great people to look up to. They provide a guiding light for us all at times. And we, adapt that to our own individual experiences and continue to improve.

Beautiful. Yeah. 

Beautiful. Said. That brings me to a very interesting subject and you and I, we've talked a lot about it, so it's bit long, but I need to, to dive into it training and developing the next generation, and that's is the. Lack of better word is this is the fear of every business owner.

That's the fear of anything in business, basically. Huh. If you don't continue the new blood coming in and that's how it continues. Will wrote that famous book, unreasonable Hospitality. I gave great book. Yeah, indeed. Said. Very. And I, true story, I gave it to everyone in our organization and I read it, and when I read it I could not stop putting lines and folding pages to go back and look later.

Indeed. Yeah. I did the same thing. Yeah. But this in particular fascinated me. If I show you the book, have so many, so that was easy for me to prepare for the podcast because I had that. Yes. He in page 98, he wrote, no matter what you do, it is hard to excel if you don't love it. I have had bad days and weeks like everyone else.

Absolutely. But I've always been able to say, I can't imagine doing anything else. He goes on to say, I genuinely believe that in restaurants we can give people a break from reality, even just for a short time. And as cheesy as it sounds, that we can make the world a better place. You just said it before.

That quote that he says at that thing, it resonates a lot with me, with my experience in your restaurants. That's, that everybody knows I, I met him going there and we're not gonna say how we met, but we we ended up becoming friends and I go. Regularly. But the interesting part is from the time I called, just don't want the dentist to understand how important this is.

I have Olga that works for you. Even if they can't pick up my phone, they call me back. And the first she says, hi Edgar, with 

her heavy accent, Alexa, instant 

accent. Hi Edgar, how are you? That makes my day after a long week. That makes it, then I come in the way they warm me and then my beautiful Annette.

Yeah. And when she's not there, Steve. Steve and then Erin. And Brian and I don't have to pick up the menu. Huh? And, but many times we, we talked about it that. When I look around in your workforce, they are all Gen X and baby boomer. 

I would say Gen X. 

Yeah. Gen X, yeah. And older Gen X, 

we might have one or two younger baby boomers, but more likely Gen X, the average age is if compared to other restaurants in the city I would say is a little higher.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Which brings me, and I've ended up sending you one of these articles. Just because we share these, this is how we spent Exactly. Discussing these things. Yeah. Yeah. The first is, and that's the article title is Gen Z unemployable. And just for the listener to understand it it's a professor Welsh at NYU Stern surveyed hiring managers asked them, what are the 10 criteria that you look for? She sent survey for 45,000 gen Zers and only 7,500 answered from the 7,500. Only 2% did you hear me, jd? 2%. Only 

2%. I think it was 2.04. Zero four. Yeah. 

I'm rounding it up. That only matched what the hiring manager. That was a scary finding.

The second article, and I didn't get to send it to you, it says, layoffs aren't shaking. Gen Z's commitment to work life balance. It highlights that despite workforce changes and. Find a job right now. My daughter just graduated from college and she can't find a job from NYU, not a BU, and, but the younger generation are continuing to prioritize balance over commitment.

So now I'm not trying to criticize anybody. I'm not saying that Gen X is better than my generation and your generation or the baby boomer, none of that. But what I'm saying is how can we train the next blood? 

I I think 

with that, yeah, I think that's gonna be key because they are the future workforce, right?

And. The restaurant you come to is mostly Gen X, right? I would say, but not all of our restaurants are, and in particular the cafes that we operate, it's a much younger workforce and how we apply the culture changes. The reality is Gen Z and maybe not so much the younger millennials now, because they're probably 30 Yeah.

Up forties. Yeah. Yeah. And mostly Gen Z is the future of the workforce. And look, I don't, I have empathy with them to understand why they want the work-life balance. I think the time when they brought up was genuinely different than when you and I were brought up. And, when I had my first career, I.

If I didn't hear from my boss, I figured that I was doing the job that was expected of me. And I only expected to hear from him when I did something incorrectly or did something wrong or inaccurate or whatever it was. And what I find now is that the younger generation and maybe we have to be a little bit pickier on who we're hiring from that generation.

And for us, when we're hiring somebody, we're always looking at somebody's soft skills. What kind of person are you? How are you gonna work within the team, rather than the technical skills. 'cause we can train them now, it's probably a bit different than what you do. No, 

but that's a good point.

You're right. It doesn't matter if they come from dental school, you can always train anybody, even dental assistant, anybody. But you're, yeah. Yeah. This is a beautiful point. The soft. Soft skills. The people skills. Yes. Yeah, people skills. Yes. That's, 

that's the most important thing when we look to hire.

And what I find is that the younger generation is looking for more consistent feedback. And I think they hope it's generally positive. Yeah. And back to my example before of in my first career, I think we have to give positive, reinforcing feedback on a regular basis for that person to stay engaged with the role that they're doing.

Another thing is that they want to experience different things, so we're seeing a lot of people jump around, especially early on in their career, to ultimately find what they will feel most comfortable with. In our cafes. The, if we keep somebody for a year or longer than a year, we're very happy.

And for most people, it's their first hospitality role and they're learning what it's like to be in front of people all day and Yeah. And taking care of them. And for some people, that's not for everybody. But for others, they fall in love with it and they want to continue to develop in that part of it.

Obviously people have backgrounds in hospitality school and, look, I think we all know that when you go to school, the real world application of the things that you learned is different. And, you learn a lot when you first get into your first or second role, right?

And what the real world application of those things are and how to apply what you've, take the good things that you've learned in schooling or education and make them valuable for your future. But yeah, it's, if we can all crack that code, I think we're all gonna be in a better place.

But, for us it's really how do we provide that constant stream of feedback. And what's important for us too is that, training doesn't end, it never ends at the two or three or four week mark, depending on what the role is in the actual training defined for the role.

We're constantly doing on the, on the job training, looking to improve those small things. Coaching them. Coaching. Yeah, exactly. 

Are they receptive for coaching? That's my my because okay. 

It's different. Yeah. Than I think what I, how I was for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a distinct answer.

I think the right people, the right ones are right. And Yeah. 

If they want to, if they wanna improve, yes. Yes. Because that goes back to the same thing. If you give them a feedback that is not to what they want, they're quick to leave. Okay. So that, that goes back to the same thing. How are we gonna, how are we gonna get the consistency of the service that we are doing?

Yeah. Because once you lose one team player to replace them and train them, that puts a strain on the whole system. Everybody. That's what people un under underestimate. That if we gonna keep a revolving on the door Yeah. Door, revolving door, then it puts a strain on everybody and it, it tires somebody.

I had a front desk lady and she's not with me now for different reasons. 21 years. Wow. 21 years. I, this does not happen anymore. Yeah. I agreed. It, it, it's funny, there was an article in Wall Street about the people who did tenure in the same place over and comparative with what people now know.

And Anne became part of my family. She, when I was, I served in the US Army, but yesterday was a, the, our day. Yeah. But the bottom line is my, my, my wife had her amnio. I was deployed. And we don't have family here. So she's from California. I'm from Lebanon who took her and, yeah.

Wow. See what I'm saying? Yes. Those kind of of relationships and consistency and persistence and all the beautiful word we say, it's hard or 

harder to find. Yeah. Yeah. I, when I think about it, you've, you think about how Gen Z was raised, there was a lot more time on, on the computers now, social media, and their connections with people. While they've maybe been plentiful, a lot of 'em may not have been person to person. And the social interaction that they were brought up with was a lot different than how maybe you or I were brought up. I played in the streets from, nine in the morning till sundown when I was a kid on the weekends.

And I've, I'd be down at my friend's, my best friend's house. I was their fourth brother and having dinner and my parents never worried where I was. They knew. And it wasn't, it's a much different. World we live in and maybe is it too protective? I was just in Japan for example, in September, and I remember marveling at my wife and I, there was two, probably five to 6-year-old children walking down the street together, hand in hand.

And I with no adults, by the way, they were going from school to home and you find it bizarre now in, yeah, because we can't do that anymore here. No, but they're, what I learned is that the entire community watches out for them. And we saw another probably six or 7-year-old little girl walking down the street basically carrying a big fish down back home.

And I'm sure her mother or grandmother sent her down to the fish monger to get a big fish. And she was struggling with this fish 'cause it was, slimy. But she was determined to make it home. And it's a very different culture and unique in that way. But it's obviously much different here.

And it's challenging. 

Yeah, no, it's it's to be seen. Yeah. I think, 

look at the end of the day we are gonna have to find ways to, to relate to the younger gener, but why 

we not them? See this is where I disagree that I, I think that by compromising too much. I don't think we are doing the right thing by them.

I agree. I'm gonna give you a small story. Again, my, my, my dad, God bless his soul. He was born in 1920. I was born 1970. So 50 years between us. Okay? So huge difference in culture. Imagine now, yeah, he used to, in my time eighties going out, Saturday night was a big night. Now still is.

Thursdays, Thursday is a big night for some. Yeah. But think about it. He used wake me up at 8:00 AM to take him to mess. Now, I used to look at Temple. There is a mess at 11. Why eight? He said, because you haven't earned the right to say you're tired, right? Yeah. So imagine I come and do the same thing to my children, right?

Yeah. And this is what I'm trying to say to I don't know if we are doing the right thing by them. That's my only fear. 

I agree with you and I don't think we, we want to sacrifice our values or change our values to, or change our business values. Yeah. In that sense, we still have a commitment to do the same things we set out to do.

Yeah. The path to get there may change slightly. Yeah. But I wouldn't sacrifice 

Yeah. 

What we do, and I do think that there are people and the younger generation who share the same values. It's those 2%. Yeah. The 2%. We need to grow that. We need to grow that number.

Alrighty. And both hospitality and healthcare. Feedback plays a huge role. I'm talking about the guest. Yes, absolutely. A guest smile, a patient's comfort or sometimes a complaint, it can be either or. How do you use feedback? First of all, how do you collect feedback? How do you use it to improve your service?

The consistency and elevate the overall experience. 

Yeah. If feedback is crucial for us to continue to improve and grow, great feedback is great to hear. It makes you feel good in those moments and in what we do, we get a lot of instant gratification in that way. We collect feedback in a number of different ways.

The first one is when you join us in the restaurant, you'll get a survey of sorts after you leave the restaurant asking for feedback. And that's one way we look at it. The primary way we'd like to get feedback is by getting it with the guests in the restaurant in the moment.

Especially if something is going not according to their expectations, that we have an opportunity to correct it as much as we would want that regularly. It doesn't always happen, some people may be a little shy or they don't want to bring it to the attention to, to sour the experience in that moment in their mind, but we do have an opportunity to correct.

So you're encouraged 

we to give a feedback on the moment even is better Yeah. That you can learn and rectify it? 

Yes, of course. I think that's the best case scenario for us. If we have an opportunity to correct it, we're gonna do everything in our power too. And honestly, that's how we create stronger relationships with a lot of our guests.

People come to restaurants all the time with different expectations, dietary restrictions. And if we can fix those things in the moment, you can build a lot of trust with those with those people, gas clients who are coming in and we can make sure that the next time they come in, that we know that from the beginning and can have a great experience from the get go.

And the, some of the most challenging situations are what actually would, would've created what we call regulars in the restaurant. People come back time and time again because they're confident that we'll give 'em the same experience, give them the same. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And then obviously I want of them I come every week.

Yeah. And there are other ways to get feedback too. Yeah. Obviously there's, your standard online websites, Google the Yelps of the world. Yeah. The TripAdvisors of the world. And I think they're all slightly different for what they bring to the table. And we view them accordingly and we respond to the reviews on there.

We want people to know that we care. We do. And when we have, negative feedback, which happens, we, I, while I'd love to, to say everybody has a great time, nobody's perfect. I think we all know that. And there are times where we make a mistake and, we want to bring the guests back in and show them what we are really capable of doing and correct that for them in the future.

Funny talking about that survey. I, some people you can never make them happy. They come with the expectations. So there was a, I was reading a book called Traction. I'm still learning in business and so they're giving an example of Southwest, Southwest has a special business.

There's no seat assignment. There's no food. Flight attendant are cool, everybody trendy. It's so there, there's a woman that uses Southwest all the time, but every time she writes a letter to the president complaining about the flight attendant dress and this. 

Yeah.

So it's, so how would you respond to that? We've had, I've had that a few 

times in my career and where you feel like anything you do, you can't make the guests happy and it feels. It, it's tough. You, it weighs heavily on you. And because we genuinely want to make the guest happy.

Happy, yeah. And there's been a few times in my career, most notably probably about a year ago at one of our restaurants in Vancouver where I happened to be working that day because our leader was on vacation. And they had a guest come in who was blacklisted, which means they, they were told they weren't welcome back for whatever reason.

So I got the story from the assistant restaurant director about that this guest always complains. And how I handle that is, is I actually, I went up to them and I said, look, welcome back. I'm glad I know you haven't been here in a while. I know that in the past we've had some challenges providing the food the way you would like it.

We didn't meet your expectations, I if we can never meet your expectations, why do you continue to come back? We genuinely want to take care of you. And in, in the three times that I've done this in my career all three times, the guest has said oh no, I, we thought you want the feedback.

That's funny. They are happy, but that's just their personality. They're always gonna find something. And they thought that we wanted the feedback and I, yes, we want the feedback, but if we get it all the time from the same person I personally, if I had a poor experience at the same place over and over again, I probably wouldn't return.

But truth of the matter is all three really enjoyed it and just thought that we really, wanted to hear. I have a story for you. 

I have story for you for talking about that. We had a patient that came, and she wrote on her own a Google review. Great experience, wonderful people, amazing whatever.

And then she puts one star. One star. Yeah. 

That happens sometimes too. We reach out to those people and we ask, did you know, you wrote us great feedback. Was there something wrong? And they thought one star meant number one instead of Oh, number five. Yeah. Okay. That's a, 

that's a good point. Yeah. 

See, I learned something.

Yeah. So we talked about the feedback. Look, I did this session about AI in, in dentistry and a guy who really created he's a dentist. He created a huge AI for an implant planning software. It was phenomenal, but I touched with him how is it gonna affect us in the future? Because the, there is the human contact that we have.

So for you too, you have a lot of things from online reservation predictive analytics in restaurants to patient that to have for us patient management and diagnostics. So how can we balance that experience that, when we look back at the quote that I, I said at the beginning from Val Jour that goes back 18 hundreds.

Yeah. Okay. And talking about the hospitality as the virtue of a great soul that cares for the whole universe, a soul a soul that cares for the whole universe. Now we are going into a machine. There is a restaurant not far from me. I. Sometimes, like after a long day, you go walk, you don't feel like going home immediately.

You want to disconnect. So you go to a, whatever joint you have next to it, it's a very good place. But once I wanted to make a reservation, 'cause I don't make reservation, so I just let for the record 

You let us know 

you're 

coming. Yeah. Which helps. And even if he didn't, we'd still figure it out.

That's how I I don't if I can walk how I met all guys. Yeah. I don't know 

if I could walk into your office 

and say, Hey, I'm here. Exactly. I'm 

here. Yeah. Will I accommodate you? Trust me on that. It's happened that some people messed up their appointments, the dates. Oh, like today, you have to yeah.

Indeed. Yeah. I made a mistake. But you're right. I don't know how much they accommodated us, but That's okay. We'll leave it up to that. Gee, 

I lost my 

ai. And ai. Yeah. So I called them, they had this. Respond. You can tell it's a computer. Yeah. Yeah. There is a lot of advantages with that.

Agreed. Let me tell you, for us, the amount of time that our front desk spend on the phone, like I can't even come to ask them a question '

cause they're on the phone the whole time 

there's on the phone. 

Yeah. 

And there is benefit, but also there is that human touch, we're talking about the human touch.

Especially when you are in a high end place that they want to see that. No, there is a human beings. Yeah. They're spending this them. So how can we maintain the human touch that defines hospitality, but take advantage of this. 

Yeah. I think it's a, obviously AI is, it's just beginning really.

And you're starting to, we're starting to see it creep in a lot of different places. The phones being one of them. It's, there's a couple of prominent companies that promoting themselves to the restaurant space. I think we've all had the experience where we've tried to use an AI chat bot on some websites.

It's, whether it's an airline or you're trying to return a package or whatever it is, and, I it's can be challenging sometimes you feel like if you can just get somebody on the phone, you can get this done so quickly. Now, that's for maybe you or I, but I think that the younger generations correct.

Are hoping that they're not gonna have to speak this seat. Somebody Yeah. To somebody. But for us, I think in restaurants, I think there's gonna be a subsector of restaurants that, that embrace these kind of things that are more casual, an approach. To be fair, I don't think we're that far off from seeing, or a robot cook burgers in a place and get super consistent with it. And, reduce. Isn't that 

better? 

Yeah, exactly. And I think there's a place for that. And I think ultimately though, people will want to have high-end experiences and with that comes connection, genuine connection.

Like I mentioned before. And for us we have somebody answering the phone. Yeah man, I told you. But that's how I started. 

Olga calls me back if I'm, if they see the MR call, which has something so unusual, I want to commend you on it, that then that they call back. 

That we missed your call.

That's key for us. Yeah. And that's something we, we talk about from the get go. It's easy to just say that person will call back if they want to talk to us. Correct. I, we really want to make sure we're reaching out to people who call us and. To be fair, we miss calls that happens and that's why we do that.

And I, it's important for us to be able to have that human element. It just gives people a bit of peace of mind, whether they're calling and say, Hey, it's a special celebration. I want to note that on the reservation or having a 60th birthday party or a 20th birthday party, or, my, I have allergies and I want to make sure that they're going to be taken care of noted on the reservation.

If we know those things ahead of time, it makes the conversation up the table much easier. If somebody has a shellfish allergy and I talking to that guest and I recommend a dish, selfless allergy, I look like a fool in a way. Yeah. Correct. And especially if I knew ahead of time, of course, if I didn't it, we learn in that moment.

Correct. But yeah. No, but did they We do use it for predictive analysis on things though quite a bit. It helps us understand. Based on past history, what what of a certain product we might be selling more or less of to give us an idea of if we need to increase our ordering levels on a specific thing.

And the truth of the matter is the restaurant business is a relatively simple business when it comes down to it. When you look at it all it seems Yeah. A human being not no, our biggest product is people. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I can tell you, 10 years ago, 50% of my job was people related.

And I can say now that, 95% of it is people related. Yeah. It, working direct with people. Correct. It's changed quite a bit. But at the end of the day, it is a relatively simple business. And if you are there in the restaurant, your gut feeling or your intuition is gonna tell you a lot of what you need to do.

And we're using AI to validate that intuition or gut feeling interesting. Yeah. 

Yeah. That's they try to use these things in a way to attract patients certain demographic and stuff. Sure. And I don't know how much it's working for 

now. We are paying attention to it quite a bit more from a marketing standpoint.

'cause obviously it changes how people are in potentially interacting with or finding our restaurants. The traditional Google searches migrating. It's still obviously very prevalent, but it's migrating to chat GPT, Gemini Theis of the world and those results are different than what you might find in Google, correct. And I'm 

glad that you brought this 

up 

because, so we're, 

Really diving into understand how we can position, make sure that we're positioned ourselves in a way that will have better visibility on those platforms. 

Yeah. It something very important that you brought up. It's all the SEO searches, that's like a past tense.

Yeah, it is. Because it's gonna, it's gonna weed out a lot of people out of the game. Yeah. Unless you establish yourself in it. That will be to see. Now there was an article on also I'm so obsessed with wall Street. Although I pay for it. But there was an article about searches, engine searches.

If you, the person says that I went for the AI based and I never went back. But there is a risk with that. There is a risk with that because I had a patient that came and asked Jet GPT what she should be treated and how she should be treated. Yeah. I, so I don't know how it translate to you if they asked Jet GPT how the, I don't know how how the cooking of this should be, or Yeah.

Yeah. It's it's scary anyway because it's, yeah. They're giving them who is giving them this information where they are getting the information. Exactly. There's no regulation for these things. 

I think this week or early or late last week. Cha, GPT specifically came out and said they're gonna exclude medical and financial advice from the search results.

They should '

cause this patient, 

we couldn't get any 

sense with her. And she left. Yeah, fine. 

My, my wife calls Cha g pt Dr. Chappy and she's constantly am I okay? Am I, do I need to go to the hospital? And I, she's joking around in a way. Yeah. 

But yeah. But somebody will do that.

Yeah. Yeah. We do that. So we've covered quite a bit. This is now the final two questions. And that goes back to the commitment thing that I want to keep asking. Commitment in job and persistence and whatever. You're based in Vancouver. Yeah. But you work extensively away from home. What drives you to keep doing what you do?

A passion and a love for what I do, I. I really love connecting with the people that I work with, the teams that I work with. I care a lot about them and I want to see not only their success individually, but our success together. And I want to be there to support them as much as I possibly can.

And I've been spending a lot of time here because the team needed that support and, new York's my home at the end, I'm from here, so it's it's a great place to be. But I can tell you I love living in Vancouver and it's challenging sometimes. 'cause, my wife is there and, I can't thank her enough for the support that she gives me to be able to do this.

We met in hospitality, so she understands, but there's a length of time only how long she might understand, and I don't blame her for that. Yeah. She's had an opportunity to come visit me and she's a big reason why I'm successful too. She gives me a lot of advice and, I'll I'll run things by her at times and I'm thinking about one thing a certain way, and she gives me other perspective, and I think that's important too.

And it helps me maybe see things in different lights, or it absolutely helps me see things in different lights and different ways to maybe approach things. I worked with a gentleman. Back pre pandemic and we were struggling on a, on personal level to connect. And it, it turned out that they're both Pisces my wife and this gentleman.

And she, she told me maybe I should try approaching it in a different way. And to be fair, it really worked. I changed my tune a little bit and, I felt like I was banging my head on the wall a little bit and so did that person. And we finally went out for lunch and we talked through it and and we became much stronger, better teammates and personal friends after that.

Just from a, my wife giving me advice on how to connect. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to being able to I genuinely care about the people that I work with and we share a commitment for for that together. And I wanna see them succeed as much as I do.

That's 

beautiful. Now that we closing, what advice would you give to the next generation aspiring to build a career in hospitality? It doesn't mean if only a restaurant, if dentist, how they can, how can they learn from to be good, hospitable, whatever. 

Yeah. I, my advice would be to take your time to be thorough with things.

You can't learn everything in a month or two months, or three months and expect to mastered it. It takes time to learn the ins and outs and the details, and, to show a commitment to the learning process. Don't give up too easily. I think a lot of people are eager to say this might be too hard.

I'm gonna go and try something else. But I think really anything, nothing's too hard. If you apply yourself to it you commit to it. And don't be afraid to ask for help. And get the help that you need to push through whatever barrier that it is, because I think if you do that, you have an opportunity to continue to grow instead of not, just being on that revolving door that we talked about earlier.

That's the scary. 

Yeah. Justin, thank you so much for making the time. He's going back to work right now. Yeah, I am. Thanks. Pleasure for making it.