Brianna Keefe: Stay In The Weeds Longer Than You Want

Josh Kopel (0:00)

I'm going to ask you a question that might sting a bit. How many holiday parties do you have booked for the month of December? Not like, how many do you expect? It's how many are on the books right now with the deposits collected and the contracts signed. And for many of you, I worry that the answer is not enough. And here's why that matters. I think that the companies that are going to throw those parties are picking their venues right now. This is a sweet spot between August and September. And by the time you start thinking about December, the decision has already been made. You're not losing those parties in November. You're going to lose them this month. And that's why I built the Private Events Engine. It's a simple three-part system that leverages AI to do most of the work for you. And this month in the Marketing Masterclass, I'm going to walk you through it. It's going to show you how to package events, how to get in front of the people that are booking them, and how to close them without discounting. And you get the whole thing for free. So show up to this month's Marketing Masterclass. Go to restaurantbusinessschool.com today to sign up. Now here we go.

Brianna Keefe (1:09)

You have to be in the day-to-day to get out of the day-to-day. You know, I spent the whole first year in the first door training the team, cross-training them. Like you have to build a team, empower them to make decisions, also make mistakes and learn from them and trust them. It's the only way you're gonna get out of the day-to-day.

Josh Kopel (1:28)

Welcome to FULL COMP, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restaurateurs, thought leaders and innovators. Served up on the house.

What if you have to go deeper into day-to-day operations before you can even get out of them? Brianna Keefe spent her entire first year inside one store, opening the clothes, writing the systems by hand, and training every person that walked through the door. That year is the reason she can now be nowhere near the 65 stores operating under her name. In today's conversation, we get into why delegation collapses when the founder steps back too early, why she hires her support team a full year before the business needs them, and why her best performing store sits in a market that she would have never chosen herself. If you're the bottleneck in your own business, this one's going to explain how you got there.

Brianna Keefe (2:26)

So, I have been in hospitality since my very first job. I loved it. I was a host. I even worked at an event center. I got a hospitality degree. I got a minor in business, and then I found myself up in events in downtown DC, and I truly loved it. I knew I loved hospitality, but I can't really see the vision of working my way up the ladder to be a GM of a hotel or something. So ultimately, I was working really hard, lots of hours on a college grad salary. So to me, I was like, if I'm going to work this hard, I'd rather work for myself and see what I can do.

So that was really the push. I felt I had nothing to lose at age 24, and opened our first Toastique, a thousand square feet, really just to create myself a job. And of course, it has blown up a little bit bigger than that. But yeah, here we are.

Josh Kopel (3:19)

Talk to me about the concept around Toastique, for those that aren't familiar with it.

Brianna Keefe (3:23)

Yes. So Toastique is like a boutique, healthy cafe. We make everything in-house down to our peanut butter, our cold-pressed juices, our fresh avocado smash. And so everything is fresh, simple and healthy. We have an amazing coffee program as well. So it's really kind of this one-stop shop. If you want a fresh juice, if you want substantial food, we have amazing gourmet toast or a really great cup of coffee. So it's something that quality is everything, experience is everything. We want everyone to feel welcome when they come in. They can grab something quick if they want. But at the same time, it's a place where you can meet your friends for brunch or have a quick business meeting. And it really just brings a sense of community for the neighborhood.

Josh Kopel (4:09)

So I want to talk about the products. So what I struggle with is like it's impossible to tell who's going to win.

Like if you were to tell me, oh, I'm going to open a place and we're going to have a side bowls, we're going to have coffee, and we're going to have fresh pressed juice, and we're going to do toast, and it's going to be pretty. Would you like to invest in this? I would tell you, no, Brianna, I would not like to invest in this.