February 14, 2025 • 12 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Jon Taffer, Host and Executive Producer of Bar Rescue, discusses his outlook for the bar and restaurant industry and the renewal of Bar Rescue for a 10th season.
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Sara Livezey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each
weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play
and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You
can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship
New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well, yesterday's CPI number showed us that inflation still an
issue in many categories, including food and beverage. Food and
beverage was up two point four percent year over year.
It rose three tenths of one percent from the previous month.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Eggs, Carol, we talked about it.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
We talked about it.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You see the waffle house, the fifty cent egg surcharge
as a result of the difficulty in procuring eggs. How
are that you still have some of you in the
phrase okay?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I want to ask what John Taffer has to say
about kind of the environment, whether it's the cost to
food and everything which all goes into running certainly restaurants
and bars, certainly if they're serving food. John Taffer is
back with us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.
As you know, he is the author of several books,
including the Power of Conflicts, Speak your mind, Get the
results you want. He's also the EP of bar Rescue,
(01:17):
which is now in its wet.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Season, ten season, fifteenth year.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
That's amazing. That is amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Where a network powerount network.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Welcome back, welcome back. I mean, listen, when you started this,
did you anticipated all that this was going to go
this long?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
No?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
And you know, we had what we called escalating costs.
Now we have creeping costs, so it's a little slower.
But you know, the restaurant business is such that food
costs can't really exceed thirty percent thirty three percent. So
for every dollar that my costs go up, I have
to raise it three dollars to the consumer.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Now there's only a certain amount of elasticity in that.
So let's say my hamburger prices go up three dollars,
I got to increase him by nine dollars. Now the
consumer is not going to accept that nine dollars, So
maybe I can push it to three or four four dollars,
so I can recover half of the inflationary impact on
my business. But in many cases I can't recover all
of it. So that's where it's eroding on our operating costs.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So what do you do, John, Do you like make
the burger smaller?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Do you Well, you have a couple of choices.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
You can make the burger smaller, that's one choice, or
you can raise your prices, or you can try to
redesign your menu. So, for example, and this is interesting,
psychological pricing and eye tracking with laser movement tells me
that if I box an item on the menu, sales
of that item will go up by twenty Percentelie if
I shadow or chef specially goes up by about fourteen percent.
(02:36):
People have a six percent propensity to order the bottom
two items on a list. So what I'll do is,
I'll take my most profitable item in dollars and cents,
not percentage. I'll box that one, take my second, most
shadow it, third and fourth. Put them on the list properly.
I won't price anything other than ninety five cents. There's
no such thing as eight twenty five, eight fifty, eight
seventy five. It's eight ninety five. When I need to
(02:58):
raise my price, it goes to nine ninety five. Psychological pricing.
If you price at eight fifty you're leaving forty five
cents on the table every time. It means nothing at
that point. So understanding these elements, I want to move
you through boxing. I'm going to move you to different
menu items.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Wow. So for example, waffle house is infusing a fifty.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
I would also run on eggs. I would run a
special on waffles because that doesn't use eggs. So I'm
telling my friends in the breakfast business, run pancake specials,
run corn beef hash specials. Do everything you can to
move the consumer away from the eggs construction.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And they can do that. You didn't mention automation, which
you see the chain's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Doing a lot right now. Are are mom and pop
shops able to use automation?
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Well, you know, a lot of them are a little
intimidated by I tell you the truth, just like they're
intimidated by sophisticated accounting systems. And so my research tells
me that about seventy percent of the independent operators don't
even have monthly p and ls. So we're asking them
to look at a capital investment or a long term
lease program, you know, to buy technology a little intimidating
(04:01):
for them. So I find that they're not as eager
to move into it. And interestingly, if you go to
the Restaurant Convention the National Restaurant Association five years ago,
there may be two robotic boots. Now there's probably close
to one hundred robotic boots, everything from French fry robots
to hamburger flipping robots.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Everything you can possibly that.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
But mom and pops aren't doing that yet. That's like
we're going to have to Chipotle, folks. And the Chipotle's
got you know, they've got the autocado with which helps
with peeling and you know, couring avocados and freeze people
up to do other things. But we're not we're not
seeing that yet.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
From now.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I think McDonald's is one of the leaders in it,
in some of the robotic French fry equipment and such.
But certainly, you know, it costs a lot less, it
doesn't get sick, and it's the future of our industry.
And look, we're struggling with labor as you know still,
and we think that the no tax on tips might
really make a difference for us as an industry, really
really could.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Solve that problem. I think it happens. Oh, we think
it's going to happen. Yeah, I believe it's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Why do you think it's a good idea because I
think for those of us who pay taxes on all
of our income or wondering, well, wait a minute, how
is that fair? And I guess the other side is
that let's pay those workers a living wage. And so
it's not you know, because I feel like increasingly we're
tipping everybody also who.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Declares their tips.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Well, I don't like it when I go into a
coffee store, yeah, and you know, I'm asked to tip
the batista.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
I mean, it's a little out of line. Sometimes.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I went to a dry cleaner the other day and
I went in to pick up my dry cleaning, and
it asked me if I wanted to tip the dry cleaning.
It's a little outrage every guy out of control.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So, but you think within the hotel or the restaurant industry, let.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Me tell you why, because they get an employee tip
credit so many in many states, they don't make minimum wage.
They make two and three dollars an hour.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
No I know.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
So by not tipping them on you, by not taxing
them on their tips, we're giving them a chance at
that living wage.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
It's really, why.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Don't we make the institution in the restaurant pay them
that living wage? Why don't we do it there?
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Well, we could do it there, but that's going to
increase costs. So if we look at it inflation in
those costs, here's the problem in the restaurant industry. It's
it's an industry that we manage by percentage. Occupancy costs
cannot exceed twelve percent.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Of revenue every month or every year. It just cannot.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Okay, Labor costs cannot exceed thirty percent. I'm up to
forty five percent already. Yeah, food costs can exceed thirty percent.
I'm up to seventy five percent. Now I have my
ang my insurance, my utilities, all my other costs. I
have waste and supplies. By the time I move that up, guys,
I'm at twelve fifteen percent margins.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
That's all I got.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
But what if we didn't have tips, like you know,
and I know who was it that tried to do it?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Here?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Was it Danny Meyer? Was it Danny Meyers?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Tips? Do you don't think we would think, Okay, I'm
paying more because I'm not tipping that that would make it,
even it out, and then.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Possibly, but there's some fear in that. As an operator, Okay,
you know, I have to educate the customer. And I
must tell you, anytime somebody tells me I'm going to
start a business and educate the consumer, they tend not
to be very successful at it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Tight margins.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Also, I got to share with you that the restaurant
industry is the largest non government employer in America. And
when the restaurant industry hurts, America hurts. Right, There's a
lot of consumers work for us. So keeping that industry
healthy is our largest consumer, is very, very important. And
I look at the buyouts the car companies have gotten
and other industries have gotten. The restaurant industry hasn't gotten that.
(07:16):
So I think providing this relief makes sense for that industry.
Of course, I'm an advocate for it, but I do.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Hey, Johnny, you mentioned the no tax on tips as
one of the policies forthcoming from this administration. How are
you looking at other policies in terms of growth, in
terms of helping the restaurant industry, in terms of potentially
hurting the restaurant industry If prices go up as a
result of tariffs, and people have less disposable income. How
are you looking at what's coming out of Washington.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I mean, I've done a lot of work on tariffs.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
I've read a lot of white papers and I've really
tried to do my homework on it, and it's tough
to come down with a hard position on knowing how
it's really going to have an impact.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I look at it this way.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
A German car company is charging a German's charging US
ten percent tariff to bring our cars there. We're charging
two and a half percent. Let's say we bumped that
two and a half percent to ten percent. So now
the German car comes into America at a base cost
point in theory ten percent higher than an American competitor.
They can't compete that way, so they're going to have
to make adjustments and distribution and operating costs in some
(08:14):
way to be competitive again. So it's hard for me
to accept that every tariff that ten points is going
to make it to our pockets. I think there's competitive
influences and a whole bunch of factors that play apart,
and then we could BMW. They built the factory in America.
You can tell you what they built the factory in America.
So I think that we have to look at this
as a longer play.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Well, look at Ford and GM.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
They built cars in Canada and Mexico, and then they'll
get hit with tariffs when they bring those cars in
and when the car components cross the border multiple times
as a result of the manufacturing process.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
It's but I would say, you know who was sitting
at who's controlling our government? And we allowed Ford Motor
Company to start building plants in Canada and Mexico, why
didn't we incentivize them to build them here then? So
now I think we're backing into it. We have these
these international companies that we want to make residents.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Some of it is like, you know, the globalization right
of our world, and right, so we've got allies and
we've got alliances, and we invest in your country and
you invest in our country. Right, That's kind of how
it's all happened. Is it bad if we kind of
back off of all of that in your view?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I don't know if we're backing off on all of that.
Is understanding that in the post COVID world, every country
is in a different economic place today. It's a different
we're talking about environment. There's a very different environment now.
America is operating at a significant deficit with significant debt.
We have to fix this. The world knows we have
to fix it. The world doesn't want us to cave in.
(09:34):
We're the largest marketplace in the world. So it seems
to me that the world has to accept that these
changes have to be made to eliminate the deficits that
we all have to make us all healthy. So can
we do this together in a constructive way. That's what
remains to be seen to me.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
What about in your world at the bar world, where
tariffs could affect the liquor market Mexican tequila whiskey coming
from Canada.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
That concerns me.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
But you know that Mexican in tequila needs to compete,
you know with other brands and other products. I don't
have to sell as much tequila. I can move my
menu and sell more bourbon. So you know, we do
have options in the industry, and I think that the
marketplace is a challenge. The liquor industry is in the
toilet right now, so the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Is a challenge for them.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I think they need to be aggressive, and I don't
think they're going to allow a tariff to take them down.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, increasingly there's a lot of interesting dynamics on the liquor.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
I'm not saying I know this to be a fact,
but this is just how I feel about this. I
think time will tell on well.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
In terms of policies, you talked about, you know, a
shortage of workers in terms of immigration, and I know
there's illegal versus legal, but you know, the hospitality industry
got really hurt, you know, after the pandemic. A lot
of people left that industry found better jobs, better paying jobs.
What's your view on immigration.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Well, I think legal immigration is important, but I think
we need immigrants to come in. First of all, I
don't want to hire somebody who I can't do a
background check on.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
There's too much liability today, especially in a hotel industry,
So I have to hire people that I can do
background checks on, that I can have confidence in hiring
them that they're safe, they're not thieves, my employees are safe,
et cetera. And right now we don't have that. So
when I look at the immigrants, the illegal immigrants that
have come across that I can track their background They're
of no value to me.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Interesting, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Sure there are of much value to America if we
can't track their backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I would say that someone might Someone might push back
and say, well, if there's fewer people to do the
labor that illegal immigrants do right now, that might pull
from your labor labor force of legal immigrants working at
restaurants and then cause your cost to go higher.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, I didn't use the term. I'm trying to focus
on criminals. There are legal immigrants that do have backgrounds
and you can verify who they are. I don't have
an issue with that. I have an issue with the
criminals or the people whose backgrounds we can check. The
ones that have gang tattoos, etc. They're of no use
to the hospitality industry. So that doesn't solve our problem.
The good ones do, the ones that have backgrounds that
(11:53):
came here with well, good.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Whoever comes in, like, You've got to make sure you
understand exactly.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
So we have to understand that people to come here
with good intentions could be valuable contributors to our society.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Twenty seconds tune in? What is that about?
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Oh you know, I'm doing a small business radio show.
You know, with all my experience in dealing with failure
and the things I have new entrepreneurs, I want to
talk to them, you know, entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I want to them.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
As John Slow your role, I want to help out
you do.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
It's a way for well, you guys are doing it
a little more sophisticated. I want to really help those
small entrepreneurs, those people starting out in those family businesses.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
There's so many out there. John Taffer, congratulations on a
tenth season. So appreciate you coming in. Of course, Executive
producer A bar Rescue. This is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each
weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play
and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You
can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship
New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well, yesterday's CPI number showed us that inflation still an
issue in many categories, including food and beverage. Food and
beverage was up two point four percent year over year.
It rose three tenths of one percent from the previous month.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Eggs, Carol, we talked about it.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
We talked about it.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You see the waffle house, the fifty cent egg surcharge
as a result of the difficulty in procuring eggs. How
are that you still have some of you in the
phrase okay?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I want to ask what John Taffer has to say
about kind of the environment, whether it's the cost to
food and everything which all goes into running certainly restaurants
and bars, certainly if they're serving food. John Taffer is
back with us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.
As you know, he is the author of several books,
including the Power of Conflicts, Speak your mind, Get the
results you want. He's also the EP of bar Rescue,
(01:17):
which is now in its wet.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Season, ten season, fifteenth year.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
That's amazing. That is amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Where a network powerount network.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Welcome back, welcome back. I mean, listen, when you started this,
did you anticipated all that this was going to go
this long?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
No?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
And you know, we had what we called escalating costs.
Now we have creeping costs, so it's a little slower.
But you know, the restaurant business is such that food
costs can't really exceed thirty percent thirty three percent. So
for every dollar that my costs go up, I have
to raise it three dollars to the consumer.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Now there's only a certain amount of elasticity in that.
So let's say my hamburger prices go up three dollars,
I got to increase him by nine dollars. Now the
consumer is not going to accept that nine dollars, So
maybe I can push it to three or four four dollars,
so I can recover half of the inflationary impact on
my business. But in many cases I can't recover all
of it. So that's where it's eroding on our operating costs.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So what do you do, John, Do you like make
the burger smaller?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Do you Well, you have a couple of choices.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
You can make the burger smaller, that's one choice, or
you can raise your prices, or you can try to
redesign your menu. So, for example, and this is interesting,
psychological pricing and eye tracking with laser movement tells me
that if I box an item on the menu, sales
of that item will go up by twenty Percentelie if
I shadow or chef specially goes up by about fourteen percent.
(02:36):
People have a six percent propensity to order the bottom
two items on a list. So what I'll do is,
I'll take my most profitable item in dollars and cents,
not percentage. I'll box that one, take my second, most
shadow it, third and fourth. Put them on the list properly.
I won't price anything other than ninety five cents. There's
no such thing as eight twenty five, eight fifty, eight
seventy five. It's eight ninety five. When I need to
(02:58):
raise my price, it goes to nine ninety five. Psychological pricing.
If you price at eight fifty you're leaving forty five
cents on the table every time. It means nothing at
that point. So understanding these elements, I want to move
you through boxing. I'm going to move you to different
menu items.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Wow. So for example, waffle house is infusing a fifty.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
I would also run on eggs. I would run a
special on waffles because that doesn't use eggs. So I'm
telling my friends in the breakfast business, run pancake specials,
run corn beef hash specials. Do everything you can to
move the consumer away from the eggs construction.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And they can do that. You didn't mention automation, which
you see the chain's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Doing a lot right now. Are are mom and pop
shops able to use automation?
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Well, you know, a lot of them are a little
intimidated by I tell you the truth, just like they're
intimidated by sophisticated accounting systems. And so my research tells
me that about seventy percent of the independent operators don't
even have monthly p and ls. So we're asking them
to look at a capital investment or a long term
lease program, you know, to buy technology a little intimidating
(04:01):
for them. So I find that they're not as eager
to move into it. And interestingly, if you go to
the Restaurant Convention the National Restaurant Association five years ago,
there may be two robotic boots. Now there's probably close
to one hundred robotic boots, everything from French fry robots
to hamburger flipping robots.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Everything you can possibly that.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
But mom and pops aren't doing that yet. That's like
we're going to have to Chipotle, folks. And the Chipotle's
got you know, they've got the autocado with which helps
with peeling and you know, couring avocados and freeze people
up to do other things. But we're not we're not
seeing that yet.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
From now.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I think McDonald's is one of the leaders in it,
in some of the robotic French fry equipment and such.
But certainly, you know, it costs a lot less, it
doesn't get sick, and it's the future of our industry.
And look, we're struggling with labor as you know still,
and we think that the no tax on tips might
really make a difference for us as an industry, really
really could.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Solve that problem. I think it happens. Oh, we think
it's going to happen. Yeah, I believe it's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Why do you think it's a good idea because I
think for those of us who pay taxes on all
of our income or wondering, well, wait a minute, how
is that fair? And I guess the other side is
that let's pay those workers a living wage. And so
it's not you know, because I feel like increasingly we're
tipping everybody also who.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Declares their tips.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Well, I don't like it when I go into a
coffee store, yeah, and you know, I'm asked to tip
the batista.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
I mean, it's a little out of line. Sometimes.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I went to a dry cleaner the other day and
I went in to pick up my dry cleaning, and
it asked me if I wanted to tip the dry cleaning.
It's a little outrage every guy out of control.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So, but you think within the hotel or the restaurant industry, let.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Me tell you why, because they get an employee tip
credit so many in many states, they don't make minimum wage.
They make two and three dollars an hour.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
No I know.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
So by not tipping them on you, by not taxing
them on their tips, we're giving them a chance at
that living wage.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
It's really, why.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Don't we make the institution in the restaurant pay them
that living wage? Why don't we do it there?
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Well, we could do it there, but that's going to
increase costs. So if we look at it inflation in
those costs, here's the problem in the restaurant industry. It's
it's an industry that we manage by percentage. Occupancy costs
cannot exceed twelve percent.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Of revenue every month or every year. It just cannot.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Okay, Labor costs cannot exceed thirty percent. I'm up to
forty five percent already. Yeah, food costs can exceed thirty percent.
I'm up to seventy five percent. Now I have my
ang my insurance, my utilities, all my other costs. I
have waste and supplies. By the time I move that up, guys,
I'm at twelve fifteen percent margins.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
That's all I got.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
But what if we didn't have tips, like you know,
and I know who was it that tried to do it?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Here?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Was it Danny Meyer? Was it Danny Meyers?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Tips? Do you don't think we would think, Okay, I'm
paying more because I'm not tipping that that would make it,
even it out, and then.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Possibly, but there's some fear in that. As an operator, Okay,
you know, I have to educate the customer. And I
must tell you, anytime somebody tells me I'm going to
start a business and educate the consumer, they tend not
to be very successful at it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Tight margins.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Also, I got to share with you that the restaurant
industry is the largest non government employer in America. And
when the restaurant industry hurts, America hurts. Right, There's a
lot of consumers work for us. So keeping that industry
healthy is our largest consumer, is very, very important. And
I look at the buyouts the car companies have gotten
and other industries have gotten. The restaurant industry hasn't gotten that.
(07:16):
So I think providing this relief makes sense for that industry.
Of course, I'm an advocate for it, but I do.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Hey, Johnny, you mentioned the no tax on tips as
one of the policies forthcoming from this administration. How are
you looking at other policies in terms of growth, in
terms of helping the restaurant industry, in terms of potentially
hurting the restaurant industry If prices go up as a
result of tariffs, and people have less disposable income. How
are you looking at what's coming out of Washington.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I mean, I've done a lot of work on tariffs.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
I've read a lot of white papers and I've really
tried to do my homework on it, and it's tough
to come down with a hard position on knowing how
it's really going to have an impact.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I look at it this way.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
A German car company is charging a German's charging US
ten percent tariff to bring our cars there. We're charging
two and a half percent. Let's say we bumped that
two and a half percent to ten percent. So now
the German car comes into America at a base cost
point in theory ten percent higher than an American competitor.
They can't compete that way, so they're going to have
to make adjustments and distribution and operating costs in some
(08:14):
way to be competitive again. So it's hard for me
to accept that every tariff that ten points is going
to make it to our pockets. I think there's competitive
influences and a whole bunch of factors that play apart,
and then we could BMW. They built the factory in America.
You can tell you what they built the factory in America.
So I think that we have to look at this
as a longer play.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Well, look at Ford and GM.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
They built cars in Canada and Mexico, and then they'll
get hit with tariffs when they bring those cars in
and when the car components cross the border multiple times
as a result of the manufacturing process.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
It's but I would say, you know who was sitting
at who's controlling our government? And we allowed Ford Motor
Company to start building plants in Canada and Mexico, why
didn't we incentivize them to build them here then? So
now I think we're backing into it. We have these
these international companies that we want to make residents.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Some of it is like, you know, the globalization right
of our world, and right, so we've got allies and
we've got alliances, and we invest in your country and
you invest in our country. Right, That's kind of how
it's all happened. Is it bad if we kind of
back off of all of that in your view?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I don't know if we're backing off on all of that.
Is understanding that in the post COVID world, every country
is in a different economic place today. It's a different
we're talking about environment. There's a very different environment now.
America is operating at a significant deficit with significant debt.
We have to fix this. The world knows we have
to fix it. The world doesn't want us to cave in.
(09:34):
We're the largest marketplace in the world. So it seems
to me that the world has to accept that these
changes have to be made to eliminate the deficits that
we all have to make us all healthy. So can
we do this together in a constructive way. That's what
remains to be seen to me.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
What about in your world at the bar world, where
tariffs could affect the liquor market Mexican tequila whiskey coming
from Canada.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
That concerns me.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
But you know that Mexican in tequila needs to compete,
you know with other brands and other products. I don't
have to sell as much tequila. I can move my
menu and sell more bourbon. So you know, we do
have options in the industry, and I think that the
marketplace is a challenge. The liquor industry is in the
toilet right now, so the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Is a challenge for them.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I think they need to be aggressive, and I don't
think they're going to allow a tariff to take them down.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, increasingly there's a lot of interesting dynamics on the liquor.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
I'm not saying I know this to be a fact,
but this is just how I feel about this. I
think time will tell on well.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
In terms of policies, you talked about, you know, a
shortage of workers in terms of immigration, and I know
there's illegal versus legal, but you know, the hospitality industry
got really hurt, you know, after the pandemic. A lot
of people left that industry found better jobs, better paying jobs.
What's your view on immigration.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Well, I think legal immigration is important, but I think
we need immigrants to come in. First of all, I
don't want to hire somebody who I can't do a
background check on.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
There's too much liability today, especially in a hotel industry,
So I have to hire people that I can do
background checks on, that I can have confidence in hiring
them that they're safe, they're not thieves, my employees are safe,
et cetera. And right now we don't have that. So
when I look at the immigrants, the illegal immigrants that
have come across that I can track their background They're
of no value to me.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Interesting, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Sure there are of much value to America if we
can't track their backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I would say that someone might Someone might push back
and say, well, if there's fewer people to do the
labor that illegal immigrants do right now, that might pull
from your labor labor force of legal immigrants working at
restaurants and then cause your cost to go higher.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, I didn't use the term. I'm trying to focus
on criminals. There are legal immigrants that do have backgrounds
and you can verify who they are. I don't have
an issue with that. I have an issue with the
criminals or the people whose backgrounds we can check. The
ones that have gang tattoos, etc. They're of no use
to the hospitality industry. So that doesn't solve our problem.
The good ones do, the ones that have backgrounds that
(11:53):
came here with well, good.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Whoever comes in, like, You've got to make sure you
understand exactly.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
So we have to understand that people to come here
with good intentions could be valuable contributors to our society.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Twenty seconds tune in? What is that about?
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Oh you know, I'm doing a small business radio show.
You know, with all my experience in dealing with failure
and the things I have new entrepreneurs, I want to
talk to them, you know, entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I want to them.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
As John Slow your role, I want to help out
you do.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
It's a way for well, you guys are doing it
a little more sophisticated. I want to really help those
small entrepreneurs, those people starting out in those family businesses.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
There's so many out there. John Taffer, congratulations on a
tenth season. So appreciate you coming in. Of course, Executive
producer A bar Rescue. This is Bloomberg
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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