 No one ever does that. So I think that's what sets you apart And that's why you're going from two locations to another location Congratulations on your third location. Well, thank you. That's that's amazing And you're saying that you're gonna have two more at the end of the year Hello friends today We have the honor of interviewing DJ Mali and the reason why I'm bringing him on board is because throughout the whole pandemic Not only is he having two locations, but he's building up a third one and on top of that before the end of the year He's gonna have six locations. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome DJ Mali. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you So tell me tell me more about what you do tell me about your company tell me about your restaurant Tell me everything about you So we started in about 2017 we started preparing for restaurant business around 2016 2015 You ran most of recipes at home kept on working for about a year and a half and finally in 2017 We opened our first restaurant Whereabouts is your restaurant? Fresno, California the first one. Oh, it's in California. Yes. Okay, and what is it that you sell? We sell fusion pizzas, which is like the Indian south pizzas and chicken wings Indian style pizza and chicken wings. Yes Crazy crazy and then so then you started with one location in California. Yes. Yes, and then now you Expand when did you expand to your second one? Second well, we did in 2019 We opened our second one in March and you know then kind of See how everything we wanted to do the third one then the COVID hit so you kind of slow down for like a month But then we like hey, you know, we shouldn't be slowing down because the COVID be ended up It's kind of focusing because I'm a DJ about profession and so I had my weekend booked with the DJ stuff So now with the COVID there's no wedding going on time to come break and we expender a piece of business And it's bigger Yes, yes starting watching your videos around March, you know, like how to go through the you know COVID you don't keep up with the restaurants and stuff like that start a following you know layman, you know You had a lot of great tips and we kept on doing it. I think our sales went up by 20 20% 20% this is yeah, I said pre COVID pre COVID. Yes. Wow. So your business actually instead of going down it went up Yes, yes Explain to me more about why did it go up? Why do you think it went up? What I think of me since we're a local family-owned business and a lot of people knew that we needed help and most of our customers They started buying gift cards. They also started, you know, just buying more pizza And I also think pizza is like a more go-to food rather than you know, you can't take a steak to home Steak and take it home and eat it like you want it, right? So pizza I'm used to go to food and people just came we only did take out and delivery. That was it And we still went up 20% is a blessing Wow, and I guess like can you tell me more a little bit more about your customer avatar? Who is it that you're serving? we Serving mostly everyone, you know, like everybody wants to try on me first when we opened the store We thought Indian pizza was gonna be for the Indian people, but no we have about 15 to 20 percent Indian clientele where most of our customers are mixed, you know, Asians white Hispanic and everybody so and we are known for our chicken wings, too If some people don't like the curry They come in for have a regular pizza and their chicken wings. I love that That is so crazy. I I really crazy like tell me more about how so you started off as an Indian Indian pizza concept and then from there onward you're like, hey, you know what? I want to pivot a little bit more Grow your audience and to grow your demand and from there onwards You're able to create a mass movement of people that really supports your local brand. Is that right? Yeah, yes. Yes, and and we work a lot of with the, you know, local hospitals and stuff like that When the COVID hit we basically was living to each hospital for the whole staff for like two months, you know We were picking a hospital each week and you're feeding the nurses and everything and Those people always show a lot of respect and love to back to us, you know Whenever you do good things a good thing happened to you. That's what you look at it That is so crazy and I think like for you to be able to kind of stay your course and not get and and really adapt throughout the whole COVID is really the essence of Running the business. It's like throughout crises There are definitely a lot of opportunities and for you during that time you didn't give up You didn't close your doors and you just you know focus on what we do Yes, and we actually didn't fire any employees either. So we kept all of employees. So, you know, it's Been great. You know, I think hopefully our goal is with the next two years. We want to have about 10 locations That's the plan, but Yeah, I am excited. I'm excited for us to be able to bring you back on and For you to share all your wisdom and your experience with our audience Now I know like a lot of people who are our audience are stuck in a funk They're stuck in like how can I move forward, especially throughout this whole COVID? I think like for you, you're able to pivot and you're able to find that That road of yours that allowed you to go plus 20% Pre-COVID what yes advice or what experience can you share that has allowed you to to get past this We actually went up on our advertisement a lot too, you know, we started doing ball balers more social media and First thing I think you got to have a great food Then which I believe we do but the only way you could have a great food But people has to try to know your food is good So when we did open we basically gave a lot of pieces for free the people will come in and Even just to look at our menu. We still give them something when they're leaving even small, you know Pizza maybe like some chicken wings and stuff like that. So once they do try they talk about it And that's how you get the word out, you know, and I think customer service and the food at the two Man party when you walk in or a store, I mean if you're not happy we're gonna give you money back We're not gonna try to say hey, you know, you know, you got to follow that thing It's hard for restaurant owners to follow that customers always right, but and that's what you got to believe, right? I mean, that's what we believe in And we made the Yelp stop 100 restaurant to eat in America last year For 20 Yes, that's very impressive. No, that was that was a big achievement for us. Yes. Yeah, yeah Yeah, and I guess like when COVID did it did it take you by surprise or did it startle you and like was it tough? Yes, at the beginning I was thinking about I was like, you know Like the way they were closing in 90 and I was like, well, hopefully we could you know Keep her employees and make sure, you know, they get paid and stuff like that and we break even and that that should do it for Next few months. So, you know, all this goes away But I guess COVID was here to stay for at least a year. It seems like it so but no It was you know, I got it got us worried But I think you can't just keep thinking of negative We just kept on positive and pushing it forward. So it turned out to be good And so you're like, you know what after a few months you you're gonna just make sure you focus on the quality of your food Make sure that you get your hands of the people So then that way, you know, your stuff is good as long as people try it They'll come and you focus on items that are good to travel good for packaging and good for just comfort food I mean pizza and wings. You can't really go home and and that's pretty much your tactic, right? Yes Beautiful We try to keep a small menu. You know, we don't try to do like a lot of different stuff to the menu All these service chicken wings and pizza. That's it. Okay. I love that. I love there's a golden nugget in there Why did you choose to keep a lean menu? It's always easy. I mean you can't be good at everything, right? So I would say we just got a master to food with just pizza and the wings and that's what we did And so if you don't like pizza, you come for the wings If you like if you don't like the wings you come for the pizza So and we try we don't want to be master for everything, right? So and I don't think nobody can't be a master of anything I've seen some of these restaurants like adding pasta and all other stuff I think it's better to focus on Like your main ten items and just push those and if you could do it on those It's awesome. I like that and and the beauty about this is we see a lot of big corporation and chains and even some of my clients I advise them because they have like 50 different menu items and with that There's a you can't choose what to eat and you're like, oh my goodness I'm just confused and on top of that people like you need to make sure you Control your cost of good solds and you control your your items that are the most profitable items that you're serving out there And that's why you see big chains even like McDonald's are cutting on the items that are not making them good money Origins when there are third-party apps involved So I think like that's a great strategy that you're working on There's like two folds focusing on items that you're making really really good at and on top of that Allows you to control your cost of good solds. Do you care to share about like how high is your cost of good solds just in range? Our food cost is about 30 30 to 32 percent So it stays around anything from 32 to 33 Roughly and our labor's run that 30 percent as well. The only reason is food is 33 percent our goal is to the way we make our pizzas. It's from edge to edge So you we hide the crust that's what we do with the toppings if you go on or yell Anywhere you see the pictures or go with the chicken or whatever you put on a piece of we hide the crust so We don't do So we did that for two months and then we started did the measurements and something like that I got the food cost out and came out of me first We give it under 28% but a food cost went up 5% but after that our customer in a sales one Sky high so, you know customer do care. What did they get from you know? You come to the very piece of it even up here large or our family says pizza contains about hundred pepperoni on it So, well, how you get a pepperoni pizza has under pepperoni on it. Yes Wow, no wonder you're cuz like the thing is I've known some pizza shops their cost of good solds are like 10 20% You know and they really lean with that if you look at the pepperoni slice Are you gonna see maybe what two or three pepperonis on it? So or he sliced on me hundred pepperoni on a pizza You you're not gonna see it anywhere else. Oh, wow We took a chance, but a customer loves it, you know, but people know what they're paying for it, right? Okay, so you talked about cost of good souls being around 32% labor is around 30% And do you work with third-party apps? Yes, we do we use our door-dash Uber Eats and how's that coming along for you? They don't actually they they do pretty good for us But you know end of the day they take 25% but you could always pause them on your busy time Yeah, I'll definitely recommend everyone to have it. You know, they kind of get your name out people know body I mean when we started it Uber was charging us think 35% that was back in 2017 Yeah, and they were starting 35% but we didn't have no choice because we knew in town and nobody knew about us So then we kind of stopped using Uber and then they call it reach up back to us and we kind of agreed to 25% Wow, see that's that's the secret that not a lot of people know is the fact that they are willing to negotiate And that's why I make a lot of videos Yes to share these knowledge with with my audience because I think it can really help them an extra five to ten percent Bottom line is basically what our rush on to your stay home And if you don't negotiate and if you don't really push for it, you're not gonna have it Right the way I look at it I think you should definitely team up with the other buddies if anybody else owns a restaurant You kind of pitch it to them that hey this these restaurants are all over so I have buddies. They own pizza restaurants I have buddies they own any restaurant So the way we kind of do we kind of team up and every time you got to reach out to DoorDash or Uber Eats So right now we we do have our prices two dollars higher on a pizza would be usually sell it But if you do do the math come we kind of ran the math We only paying about 12 to 15 percent How there's no car because there's no credit card fees if you look at it. There's no workers comp You're not paying your drivers You saving that money and there's nobody calling you and you know ordering and all that so you don't have to hire Excellent for that so if you kind of break it all down with the credit card fees and everything no workers comp and All that stuff and you don't have to send your driver out there for additional liability to make a delivery, you know All those things are gonna I would say and maybe have the prices two dollar higher than our regular prices You kind of bring it down to be 12 to 15 percent. So I think that's that's the way I'll look at it Everyone has their own kind of point of me looking at it, but That's a very smart way of looking at it because a lot of mom-and-pops what they usually do is they look at this as like Oh my goodness, this is killing my business 20% Yes, like you know what these guys are evil so on so forth But without them there's no way we would be able to survive Yes, because you need to be able to use that right and crack the code and play the game and not the not the person play The game right like understand the rules of the game, right? Understand how you can maneuver around that and because at the end of the day, it's a choice that you can make it they're not forcing you to use them and When people just kind of have this victim mentality where they feel like that Oh, they're being strong armed into signing up for third-party apps But in reality it is a convenience that they're doing for us. It's a love-hate relationship learn right right right and then play it well and exactly how you're doing it and you do all the calculations You're like wow, they basically promote for you. They market for you. They do everything for you It's worthwhile and at the end of day if you were to have your own infrastructure. It would cost even more Right, I mean having two drivers just sitting there and you only getting two deliveries You know with the four hours you pay them hourly for four hours You can't have no employees to come in for like one hour, but you can just call the employee Hey, come deliver a piece of for me then go home. You can't do that, right? So all that then if you do have a boy on payroll, you got paid workers come and the credit card fees are high You know if you look at a piece of restaurant any restaurant the credit card pieces there So I think it's better to stay fit on something else and just kind of do a little you know controlling on on your end Just to kind of upsell or just add a couple items which makes you a little extra money and From like that 25% is your responsibility to bring it down to about 10 to 15 percent and 10 percent is Completely understandable. I would love to give if they could do the whole concept for me I would have given 15% any day the reason is I mean You're busy rush hours your phone is ringing and you can't answer all the phone calls You losing business on that so I'd rather have people in my kitchen just kind of working faster So the turnaround for the pizza wings are faster. That's their goal is I love that Even till today if you still like once a month we have a meeting. How could we make it faster that I just our goal is oh That's you're such an entrepreneur. I love that. I loved your working. We try that's so crazy So bottom line you guys take them around like eight to ten percent Um, I would around 13 13 that's really good margins. Yeah And we also have pretty good way to control our labor. Let's say when we didn't do the delivery yourself We don't do delivery yourself. Now. We just use door dash to do it Well, let's say we had two people come in and we have our driver come at 11 30 be open the store 11 We had the driver come at 11 30 because the customer is not gonna call before 11. They're gonna call 11 They want to deliver you to you know, it takes 20 minutes to make a pizza and sometimes we have a driver come 11 30 So you save those 30 minutes on your payroll all those things. I think once you know your numbers You can always do better. So I always tell people if you don't know your numbers, you're the wrong business You know, but the restaurant you have to know everything it is so good You're you know exactly and that's exactly what I preach is knowing your numbers and then a day a lot of restaurant Tears they they focus on what you know what the always I get bombarded by emails every single day I have this great idea. How do I market it? I have this great idea. How do I get on social media? I have this great idea. What is a good marketing campaign the sexy stuff the stuff that actually gets people going those are the stuff That people want to focus on Rarely do people come and ask me and consult with me about hey, these are my numbers. Is it right? Is it on par? Is it not on par? How can I maximize and get 15% take home? No one ever does that and so I think that's what sets you apart and that's why you're going from two locations to another location Congratulations on your third location Thank you. That's that's amazing and you're saying that you're gonna have two more at the end of the year What's your strategy in opening these locations? So we always Right now as a friend are we trying to keep it to two months apart? So we open one location Which is get which is already open this week Then after two months again over one more than another two months You get over one more so that way we could have one store on his piece running and everything and all the staff is trained That's when we're gonna open the other one. So I rather sit on the store pay rent Just sitting on it rather than opening all of my ones and just not knowing, you know, what's gonna happen So it's always you do a perfect opening. That's that's what I believe in So why why a lot of people are are confused and a lot of people are like Yo Wilson, is this a good time to open up a restaurant? It's COVID and I tell them This is a great time to open a restaurant if and only if you have the right offer a Quality product and you know what you're doing and this is a great thing to do So tell me why you think it is a great time and why you're doing there's a couple reasons I mean first thing you got to know your food and then you also kind of do kind of good night The only your social media then people how much you know, if you read your old reviews You kind of follow up on Instagram People if you like your food they'll post about you. Hey, I would love to have this be center town You know, that's about so once you know that and I think it's the perfect time to get a you know Your lease agreements kind of the way you want it, you know better, you know rent and you could also get a lot of the You know money back from the landlord because I mean a lot of people are scared to do business And I think it's the perfect time to you know, if you know your product is good just kind of Get a perfect offer, you know, maybe the rent I'll be on couple occasions. We got a great rent, so Which I think if there was no COVID we would be able to pay more Totally and I think that's that's spot-on like me as a landlord and me as a tenant as well I definitely understand the fear that people go through and even myself. I'm afraid I'm afraid that my tenants I'm not going to be paying on time and that's why I'm much more lenient with with the terms because I'm like Just have someone coming through and taking care of my unit So I don't have to just pay my mortgage every single month And like I was actually able to help one of my mentees my client negotiate six months of free rent just earlier And I'm like damn that's like this is the golden time It is one of the first location we got we got a money back from the landlord It was like he gave us I think eight dollars a square foot And now, you know, we end the point in life, you know Once you kind of do like I say learn your numbers you learn the business and one of the landlord I got 30 bucks a square foot from him. So just to build out as a ti money. Wow You can't go wrong with that. So I mean, I'm just sharing this with these so people could there's nothing wrong We're trying it when you signing the lease just ask for it. They go the worst thing it happened. They can say no, that's it Dude, I love it I love all these nuggets you're dropping with us because it's that's exactly what it is is if you don't ask You're never gonna get it and a lot of people are afraid to ask because it's like it seems rude That's what a lot of feedback that I get it's like it seems rude. It's A lot of money even our stores we want to build nice stores So the latter know what it brings today We're gonna show them a plan and we can draw everything up. Hey, you know, this is what we're gonna be do to your building And you know, even if it doesn't work out for us, we'll leave but you'll have a great restaurant You know, you you could always be able to someone else, but hopefully it doesn't happen When he when he knows he knows you got to put a lot of money in it and you know, that's Your you look your food and customer service. I mean if you got those three things, right? You can go wrong with our Totally totally I love your big plans I love the nuggets that you're sharing with us for the people that actually want to follow your journey of people that are in In California that want to reach out to you don't want to try your pizza. How can they find you? They could find us on the Instagram the curry piece of company So it has all the information for locations and for food pictures whatever they want to look at it, so Perfect guys. It's in the link below. So if you guys want to check DJ Mali out Definitely go into link below check them out reach out to them if you guys have been any questions once again I really appreciate your time. I know it's super valuable. You're building up new shops and family to take care of Thank you once again for jumping on to this I think like the nuggets you're sharing really inspires people to to let them know It's okay to go through the hardship and it is okay. Yes. Yeah, it's fine. It's like go out there and go and build your dreams Right. I'll at the beginning when we did it for the first restaurant we threw threw away about I'll say about Almost 20 30 bags the flower just to get the you know, right though. We want it so every night We'll make it. Well, it's not right. Let's trash this. Let's do it again Let's trash this will do it again, and it was a process I'm here my brother-in-law. He's on a team with me and I have a buddy He's naf and he's on a team with me. They were getting tired of me He's like, hey, do you just come in and tell him say throw the door well, but it's not perfect We're not gonna sell it. So always tell the people working in the kitchen if you can't eat it. Don't serve it I love that. I love that final nugget you sharing with us. That's what people need to know It's like they can yes quality food Marketing comes last right quality quality Location location location know your numbers know your customers and then it is the marketing Yep, great stuff. Once again, thank you so much DJ Cal. Thank you really appreciate you being on this All right appreciate it. Thank you