Transcending Workspace: A Conversation with Brian Canlis

On this episode, Matt sits down with Brian Canlis, co-owner of Canlis, a fine dining restaurant in Seattle, Wa. Having grown up in the restaurant business, Brian spent eight years studying and working abroad in England, Austria, and Spain before finishing a hospitality degree at Cornell University. After four years as an officer in the Air Force (he worked with Air Force One - you may have seen him on CNN saluting the president) he returned to Seattle to join his brother Mark at the helm of Canlis: the landmark restaurant built by his grandfather in 1950. Outside the restaurant, Brian has hosted the country’s preeminent event on hospitality, The Welcome Conference and has appeared as a judge on Top Chef and a guest on No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.

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Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;01;14
Matt
Today's guest is Brian Canlis

00;00;01;28 - 00;00;22;25
Matt
Having grown up in the restaurant business, Brian spent eight years studying and working abroad in England, Austria and Spain before finishing a hospital degree from Cornell University. After four years as an officer in the Air Force, he worked on Air Force One. You may have seen him saluting the president. He returned to Seattle to join his brother Mark, at the helm of Canlis

00;00;23;07 - 00;00;45;10
Matt
as third generation owners of the 70 year old fine dining institution. Mark and Brian have garnered national attention for being one of the most innovative restaurants in America. Outside of the restaurant, Brian has hosted the country's preeminent event on hospitality. The welcome conference since 2017. Brian Canlis

00;00;45;10 - 00;00;51;07
Brian
Welcome. Thank you. Matt got a cold but I'm happy to be here regardless.

00;00;51;11 - 00;01;12;26
Matt
Hello. No, I really appreciate you coming on. We are excited to have you and your story at Canlis has and will be really interesting I think to my 13 and a half listeners so it'll be fun. So let's start out tell us a little bit about Canlis I mean there is a storied history here.

00;01;13;20 - 00;01;14;18
Brian
There's a lot of baggage.

00;01;14;28 - 00;01;21;02
Matt
It goes back beyond, you know, all the way back to 1910. But you can start wherever you like.

00;01;21;23 - 00;01;53;18
Brian
I'll start even earlier, OK. It's kind of fun. I mean, so my great grandfather was born in the island of Lesbos in Greece and decided to run away from home and he actually swam to Turkey as family legend goes, which is about a three mile swim. Wow. And he then found his way down to Cairo and got a job, the first hospitality job in my family.

00;01;53;18 - 00;02;21;17
Brian
He started working at the hotel called the Manor House Hotel it's still there today, right at the base of the pyramids. And he started cooking and learning languages and he ran into Teddy Roosevelt, who had just finished his presidency. And President Roosevelt went to Africa on this kind of famous safari where they collected over a year's time all these animals to bring them back to the United States.

00;02;22;07 - 00;02;40;10
Brian
Those are the animals that you see when you go to the Museum of Natural History and the upper west side of New York City or a river like that in the museum. That movie, it's based on that museum. But yeah, so Teddy Roosevelt hired my grandfather from the manor house to be his cook for that expedition.

00;02;42;14 - 00;03;06;11
Matt
And then when that was over, he immigrated to the United States. He made his way like a lot of folks from the Mediterranean did to Northern California. And he opened the first Camilla's restaurant. So his last name was Camelot's for the K at Ellis Island. Or wherever he emigrated. They changed it to Camelot's with a C, he opened a restaurant.

00;03;06;16 - 00;03;33;11
Brian
That's all he knew. And it was called the Food Palace and Fish Grotto. And their motto was, If it swims, we serve it and it's funny because we do these historical matchbooks at countless restaurant today, and we always do a matchbook that tells a piece of our history and our current matchbook is what we would have imagined. That matchbook would have been for the Fish Palace.

00;03;34;01 - 00;04;02;04
Brian
And that's all it says is food now is the Fish Grotto and has all these it's and people are so confused at our front door, they're like, I'm sorry, whose matches are these? That I go there very but so the food of the fish grotto yeah was like kind of a Greek super casual family place. My grandfather, Peter Camus, grew up in that restaurant and wanted always wanted to do something that was fancier.

00;04;02;19 - 00;04;38;26
Brian
So he ran away from home. He went to Hawaii. He didn't swim we don't think. And he started working all over the islands. And then, gosh, the story goes again. He was he was playing tennis on Diamondhead when the zeros flew over early in the morning. Believable. Yeah. Six and everyone, all the locals ran to the base and put out fires for the next few days and tried to put everything back together again.

00;04;38;26 - 00;05;07;00
Brian
And one of the jobs that he took on bass is everyone on bass went out to war, and the locals kind of ran things that were already established. So he ran the officers club again. They the USO, not after, but yet like it was a restaurant that was part YMCA, part of the club, part USO that was basically serving the troops.

00;05;07;00 - 00;05;16;11
Brian
And when they were home on leave, and so they started doing a couple hundred meals a day in the height of the war. They were doing several thousand meals a day.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;19;09
Matt
Yeah. 3500. Yeah. That's what I read.

00;05;19;10 - 00;05;20;06
Matt
This is pretty cool.

00;05;20;14 - 00;05;20;28
Brian
Crazy.

00;05;21;03 - 00;05;50;09
Brian
When the war ended, he decided he was into this restaurant thing and he opened his first restaurant called The Broiler, which was kind of the a lot of the foundational things that became Camilla's restaurant started in that little restaurant on Waikiki Beach and then in 1950 opened this place that I'm sitting in right now. Just three days later, he opened can this restaurant in Seattle.

00;05;51;09 - 00;06;19;27
Matt
It was so Pan Am had just opened a new route connecting Seattle to the islands perfect. And and he's like, oh there's a there's an entire market that I've never tried the flavors of of Japan, of Hawaii, of the Hawaiian Islands I've like of the Asian Pacific. And Seattle had just passed a law that allowed liquor to be served in restaurants.

00;06;20;00 - 00;06;37;03
Brian
We were the first liquor license for a restaurant, really the first in Seattle. And so he said, you know, between between mahi mahi and and and bourbon, we're going to open one hell of a restaurant. And that was only two years ago.

00;06;37;11 - 00;06;41;20
Matt
And any any cracked away. Then he hook up with Hilton Cruise.

00;06;42;15 - 00;07;07;08
Brian
So yeah, so about seven or eight years later, yeah, he became good buds with Barron Hilton and started opening. He opened a couple of restaurants in Hilton Properties and then had plans to open a campus and every Hilton in the world. Wow. But oh, gosh, that's a whole nother story.

00;07;07;09 - 00;07;10;16
Matt
Yeah. And that was he did get San Francisco and Portland going, right?

00;07;10;21 - 00;07;11;11
Brian
Yeah, that's right.

00;07;11;29 - 00;07;17;27
Brian
Right. And then 1977 he passed away, right?

00;07;18;06 - 00;07;20;28
Brian
He died a couple months before I was born.

00;07;21;24 - 00;07;24;11
Brian
I was going to say that's the other big thing that happened. So yeah.

00;07;25;02 - 00;07;50;01
Brian
And a few months before that. So my dad was a banker and, and family to traditional fashion. He ran away from home. Right. And did what you do with the restaurant business. And he was a banker in Northern California and my Peter Kamla showed up at his bank one day and said I'm dying, I'm leaving you for restaurants.

00;07;50;16 - 00;08;04;20
Matt
You may want to you may want to know about that. You may get right. And so he was he was like, we'll shoot. All right. So he packed up the family in the station wagon and drove to Seattle.

00;08;05;02 - 00;08;05;29
Brian


00;08;06;03 - 00;08;07;11
Brian
With my pregnant mom.

00;08;07;28 - 00;08;08;08
Matt
Right.

00;08;09;02 - 00;08;42;19
Brian
And that was 1977. He died shortly thereafter. And you know, my dad did something pretty cool at that point. He his dad, this guy we're talking about, Peter Canlis was a brilliant restaurateur, maybe not the best dad or husband and he wanted to do the opposite. He wanted to put his family first. And I again, he ended up bringing the company from four restaurants down to one.

00;08;43;23 - 00;08;50;14
Brian
And as a result, I had a dad who was there for soccer practice like. Right. And it was pretty neat.

00;08;50;23 - 00;08;59;27
Matt
Well, the other thing that I thought was pretty gutsy in that kind of the little history review that I was doing is that you had a board of directors that were telling your dad, sell it.

00;09;00;20 - 00;09;23;01
Brian
Yeah. Well, so his board. Yeah. Was made up of people who were like close friends who loved him, who weren't financially linked to the restaurant. They were just right. And so they were like, Hey, if you don't want to turn into your dad, which you didn't there is a different path and that's just focusing on your family first.

00;09;23;26 - 00;09;51;24
Matt
Yeah, and so that was hugely pivotal for your parents. And again, a theme that I saw through this history was family dining and togetherness was something that your grandfather probably learned from his father. But took to the fine dining space because fine dining at that time was very stuffy and pretentious.

00;09;52;13 - 00;09;53;19
Brian
Oh, and he broke.

00;09;53;19 - 00;09;55;18
Brian
Those barriers among other barriers.

00;09;55;26 - 00;10;01;16
Brian
Yeah, but big time. It was very it was very French.

00;10;01;16 - 00;10;03;17
Matt
It was more more Italian, right?

00;10;03;23 - 00;10;41;28
Brian
Yeah, very European, I should say. Yeah. And very so at the time, fine. Dining was it was food that was cooked well in advance and held hot and then rolled to your table in lavish presentations. It was white and male and very like yeah, stuffy. He did things that were nuts at the time. I mean, he can this was an ala carte restaurant where means you could order whatever you wanted and then they would cook it when you ordered it.

00;10;41;28 - 00;11;10;23
Brian
And at the time, that was something that a diner did or a casual restaurant. You could see the kitchen from the dining room again. That was something that was only for casual restaurants and our entire service staff was Asian women. So all of the all of the Japanese were out of work and not well loved, well received in Hawaii.

00;11;11;11 - 00;11;33;05
Brian
And he said, you know, when you study Japanese hospitality, it's one of the most striking spirits behind hospitality out of any culture. And he saw these Japanese people and the way that they thought about service and and it blew his mind. He was like, why are we going to do fine dining in French? Let's do fine dining in Asia.

00;11;33;05 - 00;11;56;13
Brian
Kind of let's see what happens if we take our cues from this ocean versus that ocean. And as a result, he became real, real vocal about being anti-Europe and would have unkind words for Julia Child and. Oh, yeah. In the media. And it was kind of fun. So, yeah, we were actually the first tip pool, right? of any restaurant in the country.

00;11;56;26 - 00;11;59;24
Brian
And it wasn't his doing. It was it was the women.

00;12;00;18 - 00;12;02;14
Matt
It was the cultural influence. Right. And they were.

00;12;02;14 - 00;12;26;08
Brian
Like, What do you mean keep our own tips? We only work as a team, right? And so, yeah, even today where team sailed service is the standard and fine dining. We were doing Team Self Service in the fifties again, not because he was a visionary, but because of the Japanese culture only allowed for that type of teamwork and hospitality.

00;12;26;16 - 00;12;27;02
Matt
Pretty cool.

00;12;27;09 - 00;12;56;17
Matt
Very cool. I my story, and I've told you this before was in the early eighties, probably 83 I was going to University of Idaho and a friend of mine's dad was a vice president of International for Simplot. Simplot is known for delivering all the potatoes for McDonald's French fries and they're out of Boise, Idaho. Wow. So he comes up to Seattle and says, Hey, I want to take you and your friend Matt out to dinner and so we wind up trying to figure out how to fit in.

00;12;56;20 - 00;13;15;19
Matt
I was trying to figure out how to put a jacket on because I didn't own one and we wound up at a canlis and we had the kimono experience and it was amazing. And he sat there and he said, Man, I've been all over the world.

00;13;16;02 - 00;13;17;15
Matt
And two.

00;13;18;06 - 00;13;26;24
Matt
There I have my five top favorite restaurants in the world and two of them are in Seattle. It's Canlis and the other was Rovers.

00;13;27;19 - 00;13;29;08
Brian
Oh, right on Seattle.

00;13;29;17 - 00;13;51;29
Matt
Yeah, yeah. And so I just kind of sat there and took it all in and was like amazed. But and to this day I remember the experience and the beautiful gowns, the kimonos that the Japanese women were wearing. And the service was, of course, off the hook. And you're about six at the time? I think we're seven so.

00;13;53;01 - 00;14;05;18
Matt
But it was cool. It was cool. So now we're, you know, we've kind of come full circle. Both you and your brother Mark, have spent time away from the restaurant. You kind of did. You're running away.

00;14;05;18 - 00;14;08;04
Brian
And that's how we do it.

00;14;08;17 - 00;14;16;00
Matt
Yeah. And you also spent time both of you spent time in armed services. I think both were in the Air Force, correct?

00;14;16;09 - 00;14;17;15
Brian
We were. Yeah. Yeah.

00;14;18;00 - 00;14;51;16
Matt
And so then coming out of that where you're basically taking over a restaurant, you have your ideas. We'll talk a little bit about people process and culture but I wanted to first talk about what, 2019, 2020? You guys were probably the first restaurant that I heard of that shut down during COVID and how from the time you kind of sensed it to the time you pulled the trigger what was that?

00;14;52;04 - 00;15;07;06
Matt
How quick was that? It just seems like extremely quick. You guys were really on like the cutting edge of realizing that. Yeah, you know, I've read that you determined that fine dining was an was not a need in the community at the time, but.

00;15;07;22 - 00;15;31;03
Brian
There was a lot so a lot of things happened that month. And it's, it's funny because all of COVID seems so hazy, but that come over it crystal clear to me. A few things happen. One I went to South Korea at in February, mid-February on a trip to go dine at some well-known restaurants and learn from them, which is something we're always doing.

00;15;31;03 - 00;15;57;22
Brian
We go to other countries, right. That are their best restaurants and take back what we learn. It's a me and a guy on our team went together and COVID was was a thing, but it was still pretty mild. I think there was something like six cases in South Korea, and then we were shocked. The streets were empty, like the subway, that the metro was empty.

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;23;00
Brian
We went to the fancy palace and it's I'd expect large crowds and we were alone. And there was always loudspeaker warnings in the streets about wearing masks, about the fact that there was that there was a pandemic afoot. And I was like, wait a minute, are there only six cases? But like South Korea has been through pandemics before and they know what's up.

00;16;23;21 - 00;16;52;10
Brian
And I even I remember I bought masks and I wore them because everyone else was wearing them. And it felt like the most foreign thing in the world. I was like, look at me. I'm wearing a mask, aren't I? But it it felt like the most most otherworldly thing was being in South Korea during the start of COVID and and amazing that the United States would be, you know, in that exact place just a few months later.

00;16;52;10 - 00;16;54;13
Matt
But in that way, when that was January.

00;16;54;26 - 00;16;55;27
Brian
No, that was February.

00;16;55;27 - 00;16;58;29
Matt
That's February. Oh, my goodness. So you have kind of a canary in the coal mine.

00;16;59;08 - 00;17;29;02
Brian
Yeah. Well, and the other thing that happened was we consulted for a restaurant that opened in Shenzhen, China. And we are we made some great relationships with folks in mainland China. And we were talking to them every day. About their experience. And it was like what we were getting in in the media wasn't really as dramatic or scary as what we were hearing from our friends on the ground.

00;17;29;25 - 00;17;38;13
Brian
And so this kind of 12 punch of are our buddies in mainland China and then my experience in South Korea was this feeling of like.

00;17;39;00 - 00;17;39;25
Brian
We got to do something.

00;17;40;08 - 00;18;12;20
Brian
I think this might be bigger than anyone thinks. Yeah, I'm not saying we were prophets or anything, but it just felt bigger. And so our numbers were starting to dwindle, especially private events like the big parties were starting to cancel and the beginning of March and the writing was on the wall. Like it doesn't it didn't take a lot of data scientists to look at a downward trending line and we had a meeting and we said, Listen, our restaurant has a mission statement.

00;18;13;24 - 00;18;41;24
Brian
That mission statement is true. No matter what is happening in in the world. Our mission statement is to inspire all people to turn towards each other. And we decided well, it looks like fine dining may not be the way to do that, but that doesn't mean that we can't still do that. And so we we we hatched this idea to to become a burger drive through, and we had a staff meeting.

00;18;41;24 - 00;19;05;03
Brian
We put everyone in a circle and we asked them, we're like, Hey, guys, we can either keep doing what we're doing and have dwindling numbers and be scared and depressed every day and have this, like, feeling of this impending doom or we can shut the restaurant down and do it when no one's expecting us to do and go on this wild ride together, which, you know, we thought would be of course, a few weeks long.

00;19;05;17 - 00;19;25;18
Brian
And everyone, like the spirit in that room was magic to be able to do something instead of let something happen to you It's night and day. And they were all like, they were so and so. We, you know, we started designing t shirts and business plans and models, and this was all ten days before we even between the first.

00;19;25;19 - 00;19;27;01
Matt
Oh, wow.

00;19;27;14 - 00;19;52;02
Matt
And we'll have to say one thing. We're going to talk about people process and culture, because that does not just happen without you deciding, what, six, eight years earlier that changed the way you operated with your people and how you manage your culture, because I think you had, what, 95 employees at the beginning of the downturn.

00;19;52;24 - 00;19;55;15
Brian
More a little more like 105 maybe.

00;19;55;23 - 00;19;57;06
Matt
And you have how many now?

00;19;57;28 - 00;19;59;12
Brian
Same, yeah.

00;19;59;26 - 00;20;12;15
Matt
And you're in a hospitality world where most, if not many, if not all your competitors were decimated with people going without work and without paying yeah.

00;20;12;15 - 00;20;35;23
Brian
I was told I don't know if it's true, but it hasn't been that we were the only full service restaurant in America to not let anyone off for those first few months. Yeah. So we we kept every single person employed and we didn't close for a single day. And so, yeah, we were the first restaurant in the country to announce that we would have it or do something different.

00;20;35;26 - 00;20;54;03
Brian
And and what I also I mean, of course, just to add more drama at the birth of my third child happened basically March 1st. Oh, wow. So so I had a newborn like it was, it was really something.

00;20;54;11 - 00;20;55;10
Matt
And McKenzie was like.

00;20;56;22 - 00;21;16;02
Brian
What are you doing? You're so we would have shut the restaurant down sooner. We were all ready to go about five days before we actually did it. But my parents were like, what and they really they put the brakes on for a second because it's a big deal to close the dining room. It's not just opening a burger stand.

00;21;16;02 - 00;21;38;10
Brian
It's I don't think I don't think people realize. OK, so first time outside of a couple of primos in over 70 years that Canlis has been closed outside of President Kennedy's assassination and the duck tour on Aurora I mean this is in 70 years.

00;21;38;12 - 00;22;09;01
Brian
We don't close we don't cause not a single snowstorm power out we stay open this one there are things that we never budged on because people when they come to dinner here it's not because they're you know randomly hungry on an idle Tuesday it's because tonight matters for a very specific and significant reason people save up like all year to have dinner here or people fly in to have dinner here or it's the you know, you only get to have your 10th anniversary one time and your whole.

00;22;09;08 - 00;22;10;16
Matt
Career only gets signed.

00;22;11;06 - 00;22;11;15
Brian
Yeah.

00;22;11;20 - 00;22;13;24
Brian
Place at one time. And that's was harmless.

00;22;14;07 - 00;22;33;25
Brian
And so shutting down meant calling all our guests and and we had weddings planned. It means I'm going to cancel your wedding. That's next week and like it means so it was not just it was a very heavy thing. It also financially. You know, we for every one of our deposits, every one of our reservations, we take a deposit.

00;22;34;08 - 00;22;37;09
Brian
Yeah. So we had a half million dollars in the.

00;22;37;09 - 00;22;39;00
Brian
Bank, massive cash flow issue.

00;22;39;18 - 00;23;02;17
Brian
That we had to pay back. And fortunately, we're super conservative with cash but a lot of other restaurants who use deposits or people have reservations, they got in a lot of trouble during COVID because they had to pay all that money back. And we didn't. But it sure made things hard financially was to have a huge cash outflow.

00;23;02;17 - 00;23;09;08
Brian
When we closed the restaurant it it wasn't just, Hey, we open a burger stand or not. It was it was heavy. It was.

00;23;09;15 - 00;23;21;09
Matt
Does talking about it give you like a higher heart rate? I because I know at certain times during our company's history where we've had some struggles, I'm like, Oh, I can remember that my heart starts pounding.

00;23;21;09 - 00;23;43;20
Brian
Yeah. Oh, and then I think what was really hard was that that the rules I mean, a, the our knowledge of the virus changed on a daily basis, it seemed. And and the and the local health rules changed on a daily basis. And, and having to keep like work your butt off because we were serving a thousand burgers a day.

00;23;43;20 - 00;24;09;17
Brian
And we also opened three concepts. We opened the burger stand, a bagel restaurant and a nighttime delivery dinner service. We we opened three restaurants in those first three days. And and meanwhile, you've got, you know, I've got someone on their cell phone taking videos of the of the bagel line and complaining to local health officials.

00;24;10;11 - 00;24;11;16
Brian
That or to close.

00;24;11;21 - 00;24;14;13
Matt
That down spreading the virus. Yeah. Like well.

00;24;14;13 - 00;24;14;20
Brian
I don't.

00;24;15;26 - 00;24;35;05
Brian
I didn't anticipate a couple of hundred people in line. I don't have staff to manage a line of 200 like. Yeah. So it's like, well so do we closed, do we every single day was the types of challenges that we have never ever face ever. It was what let's go through.

00;24;35;06 - 00;24;42;23
Brian
So drive through burgers bagels bread delivery. Right. Box delivery, CSA boxes. I think that's part of the box delivery person.

00;24;42;23 - 00;25;02;28
Brian
Right. Well, yeah, but that was what it was. But it wasn't. And that was an entirely different program because we're really close to all these small farms and those small farms there. The floor just dropped out, all the restaurants closed. So they were saying look, we've, we're sitting on this delicious product. Can you help us move it? Yeah, like, yeah.

00;25;03;03 - 00;25;05;11
Brian
Oh, let's do, we'll do CSA.

00;25;05;11 - 00;25;16;26
Brian
So yeah, and then to go cocktails, which we took advantage of with one of our employees for her birthday or some event channel livestream, which I love. The bingo shows was crazy.

00;25;17;29 - 00;25;18;09
Matt
Yeah.

00;25;18;09 - 00;25;26;16
Matt
A drive in movie theater. then was Crab Shack, which I, I missed and I was pissed because we were trying to get in and like the last thing we missed,

00;25;26;21 - 00;25;27;17
Matt
That thing was awesome.

00;25;28;11 - 00;25;29;22
Brian
Canlis community college.

00;25;29;22 - 00;25;32;16
Matt
Do you still do that?

00;25;32;21 - 00;25;34;16
Brian
Can you still do the canlis community? No.

00;25;35;02 - 00;25;40;13
Matt
But that was the most I would say that was the most successful of all the pivots. Was that.

00;25;41;01 - 00;25;49;17
Matt
Wow. And then with this I did attend this Swiss yurt village which is fine dining in a year. Do you still have those yurts by the way.

00;25;49;21 - 00;25;54;03
Brian
No we we donated them to a local camp..

00;25;54;13 - 00;26;06;18
Matt
Good and then campus canteen. Yeah the camp campus theme village. Yeah care packages tree house the weekend there a year village drive through and a newsletter called the spam.

00;26;07;07 - 00;26;09;00
Brian
The weekly spam. It was it was hot.

00;26;09;09 - 00;26;25;21
Matt
Yeah. So which one of the models did you like the most and that you know, kind of what did you learn in the, in the, in your business, you know, about your business in the process of exploring all these ideas because it probably was like holy practice is a great opportunity.

00;26;26;03 - 00;26;37;27
Matt
Only one of them made money. We lost our shirts. All of them except the yurt village. Yeah. That was a model that was really dialed in and smart.

00;26;38;08 - 00;26;42;07
Brian
It was it was amazingly organized when I, when we were there, which.

00;26;42;07 - 00;27;04;27
Brian
We really needed because we were in a really hard financial place. And it was kind of like, Hey, guys, we need to build a business that actually works because this pandemic is not going anywhere. Yeah, there was no talk of being a full indoor restaurant again, and we were going into the winter and you couldn't just have a parking lot shindig anymore.

00;27;05;05 - 00;27;31;09
Brian
Yeah. So that was, that was dumb in some ways, that that was one of my favorites because it was the first time that I slept at night and wasn't worried about paying the mortgage on our building. But yeah, the, the community college was was the one that I think made us most energized the city like most lived our mission statement out like that.

00;27;31;29 - 00;27;55;01
Brian
We were able to raise a ton of money for charity, for fair start. We were able to inspire this city in a way that I think they really needed. It was after a really hard summer of the protests of I think Seattle getting just treated like shit and then.

00;27;55;02 - 00;27;56;17
Brian
Like big blackout.

00;27;56;17 - 00;28;20;03
Brian
Yeah. And like the fact that I had friends calling me and being like, Are you OK? I heard your city has been taken over by Antifa and you're like, oh, my gosh. Is it true that your streets are on fire? Like, no, like, we're fine, guys. We love this freaking city. This. And so we, we created this community college that celebrated our town.

00;28;20;06 - 00;28;46;20
Brian
We had something like 15,000 people sign up and participate and we put on a college. It was it was so fun. It was so hard. I mean, we had aerobics. We had intramural sports all over the town. We had we did frozen dinners for like so you could have a dinner while you took your classes at night. We built a campus store.

00;28;46;22 - 00;28;50;24
Matt
We I mean, it's kind of endless that. Yeah. What was.

00;28;50;24 - 00;28;57;10
Matt
That? Well, let me ask you this. So you had to learn some really interesting lessons in all that experimentation. What were the lessons learned.

00;29;00;24 - 00;29;03;17
Brian
I mean, gosh, we could talk for hours about that.

00;29;07;04 - 00;29;21;10
Brian
One of them is that I think creativity comes like the purest form of creativity is born out of a place of courage to allow yourself to be seen and.

00;29;21;20 - 00;29;22;07
Matt
I love it.

00;29;22;17 - 00;29;23;24
Brian
Like most people.

00;29;24;01 - 00;29;25;00
Brian
Very much want to.

00;29;27;07 - 00;30;16;11
Brian
But most people they create with the fear of what the public or the viewer will think. And it stifles that. And we really said, we're going to do the thing we're most excited and passionate about who who knows how it'll be received or what what people think our brand is supposed to do or and that really I mean, I remember during the bingo show, Marc said he wanted to do a Lady Gaga entrance, and we dropped from the ceiling on a harness over the piano and just setting up the rigging to like, belay my brother down from the 15 foot ceilings of the restaurant and suspend him over Noah Gunderson, who was playing piano at

00;30;16;11 - 00;30;42;08
Matt
the time. And it's not what people think the owners of canlis are supposed to be doing. And it created this magic where people got to know our brand and our personalities in a way that I think surprised a lot of people. And yet it was true. People resonate with authenticity and and people smell out when things are are not authentic.

00;30;42;29 - 00;30;43;25
Matt
And you can you.

00;30;43;25 - 00;30;45;00
Brian
Could be your authentic self.

00;30;45;05 - 00;31;14;12
Brian
Yeah. And the magic of being on that take really was a wave we rode throughout the entire thing. I think I think the other lesson is we spent years working on that next statement I told you. Right, and getting our family bought in our board but in our staff. But and and, you know, people talk about pivoting a lot and that the foot that gets all the glory is the pivot foot.

00;31;14;12 - 00;31;39;25
Brian
It's the one that gets the headlines and the Instagram posts because it's moving around everywhere. But. Right. The only thing that makes it not traveling in basketball is if the other foot stays planted. Right. Right. And the and the planted foot, that was our mission statement. And everything came back. Every decision we made said, is this going to inspire people to turn towards?

00;31;41;07 - 00;31;42;02
Matt
And if it does more.

00;31;42;07 - 00;32;06;27
Brian
And it's more than that because let's talk about the people, because this is the core of how you were able to engage your people to embrace change like perhaps nobody in the country did in the hospitality world. And it was an opportunity to be your authentic self while embracing change, which is a scary place. At the same time.

00;32;06;27 - 00;32;39;07
Brian
It's super exciting and energizing. But for you and Mark, this is something that's been going back right around to 20, 14, 20, 13 I think is when you guys started changing the way you were basically attracting, retaining and employing people. Talk a little bit about the things that you kind of started back then. I know there's a key question in that it's how will working at canvas help you become who you want to become?

00;32;39;14 - 00;32;58;03
Brian
Yeah, that's the question we ask every employee, right, who comes to work here because if the answer to that question, if they don't know it or if the answer is it won't help them, then hiring them is just using them as a as a.

00;32;58;17 - 00;33;00;07
Matt
More of a transactional. Right?

00;33;00;07 - 00;33;18;21
Brian
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't and but if but if my building is filled with people who show up every day and we know that it's helping them become the people they're trying to become. Then, then then you get a team that is capable of, of extraordinary things.

00;33;19;01 - 00;33;35;26
Matt
And I think that engagement level is something that I think the listeners and the people in the commercial kind of office environment need to learn because the great resignation is happening for a reason. And there's been a zero resignation from canvas over the last three years.

00;33;37;01 - 00;33;37;25
Brian
Well, what do you mean zero?

00;33;38;05 - 00;33;45;22
Matt
Well, I mean by that, I mean your other model is growth. Your other thing that I picked up on is our growth model is losing people.

00;33;47;03 - 00;33;48;05
Matt
That's the thing. I mean.

00;33;48;05 - 00;33;52;28
Brian
Yeah, because the. Yeah, they're going to become who they're going to become.

00;33;53;07 - 00;34;41;24
Brian
Yeah. The downside of being so successful during the pandemic is everyone around this region look to our team to be like it it's like when you in the Super Bowl and people are like, I'm going to go get those players. So can less employees in the year 20, 21 open seven restaurants, which is awesome. But that me meant saying goodbye to about 25 of our most talented best people and if we're going to be true to our mission statement celebrating it every time and not harboring resentment, not like being like awesome, how can I how can I get in the way of like, how could I be on your side but say that staying at

00;34;41;24 - 00;34;55;15
Brian
camp is better for you if maybe it's not so. Yeah, we we are famous for throwing parties when people leave, and the restaurant industry is famous for the opposite. Right? Being angry and bitter.

00;34;55;23 - 00;35;19;13
Matt
Well, I think people don't realize that unless you're a restaurant chain or a restaurant that's growing and developing more restaurants, people don't have a career path beyond and to the next thing. So it is natural for people, to your point, going out and starting like seven the rest you know, harmless employees started there for themselves and other partnerships, seven rest.

00;35;19;16 - 00;35;35;28
Brian
I mean, that is an amazing statistic. It's not what we grew out of. A culture of trustworthy, generous and other center. Yeah. Which are our core. The core at the core of building trust yeah.

00;35;36;05 - 00;36;04;10
Brian
No, nothing made us prouder. And yet that was a whole other challenge because we were trying to reopen as a restaurant again, as a fine dining restaurant in July. We were doing it with a team that many of them have never worked here before. And that was wild. We've, we've never had that. We've been around for 70 years like we would have one or two new employees a week, not 25.

00;36;04;23 - 00;36;21;17
Brian
I remember doing orientation in the room was packed and I was like, OK people, I know you're all really good at your you're and to go and you know they can't buy like we're going to do fine dining now and none of you have done that. So here we go like so it was.

00;36;23;17 - 00;36;27;09
Matt
Well by then you've reinvented so many times it's normal to be reinventing.

00;36;27;13 - 00;36;34;14
Brian
Yeah, we've said this and it's true. Our hardest pivot out of all of them was becoming fine dining again.

00;36;36;13 - 00;37;11;08
Matt
Ironic. Yeah, but I can see that because you've had to you had to dodge and weave and make the decisions basically day to day decisions that you'd never been confronted with before. But now it's going back to the routine, almost a routine of, of what you had done for 70 years. Right. So very, very interesting. Brian, if you had anything to say to the people out there who are struggling with recruiting and training and so forth, what would it be around people?

00;37;11;20 - 00;37;21;17
Matt
Because I think at the core of all this was not just your creativity and really unbelievable pivoting, but it was the people who came along the journey with you.

00;37;23;25 - 00;37;49;19
Brian
Gosh, I you know, I think about I mean, right now every restaurant in the city is hiring. Like there's an unknown. I mean, I guess it's across multiple industries, but I think the hospitality industry specifically has been one of the ones most in need of getting people back into it. And so I'm we're competing in a way we never did before with finding talent.

00;37;50;12 - 00;38;15;05
Brian
And so I have people show up and they'll say, yeah, you know, I've got a job offer from ten restaurants. Why why should it be yours? And good for them? Because that's what I would ask if I were in their shoes. And so instead of like resenting or getting frustrated, I feel like there's a lot of just grumpiness around labor shortage.

00;38;15;27 - 00;38;39;28
Brian
Gosh, what a waste of energy. So instead spend that energy making the your place or what we're doing is making canvas a place that is a no brainer for that person to pick out of the ten restaurants because this is the damn best place to work out of all of them. Like, what are we doing for our people that make this extraordinary?

00;38;39;28 - 00;38;58;22
Brian
What is the culture we're creating? What are the benefits that we're getting? What is that? Let's stop asking the question. What's the least amount that we can pay people to keep here? But ask the question, what's the most we can possibly pay people and still thrive as a business like it? To me, it's just it's just the next challenge.

00;38;59;28 - 00;39;22;20
Brian
And I'm sick of the bitching around. Yeah, the like and the shortages. It's not their fault. It's your fault for not being great enough for people. Like the great places have people lined up to work there. They just do so that's that's who we're trying to become.

00;39;23;13 - 00;39;52;23
Matt
I just I've my tenant, my clients, I just basically say, you know, it's there's challenges to everything. But this is a great opportunity for engagement like no other. I mean, you can actually engage your people to figure out the next transition for your workspace. And anyways, we could go down a serious rabbit hole here. So I do appreciate all the input and ideas and sharing of your creative journey.

00;39;52;23 - 00;40;08;17
Matt
It's been unbelievable talking to you. And I know we've we've got to cut it short. I think I could go on for a couple of hours with you because, you know, there's always something interesting about what the direction you take things. So I hope we can have you back. Bryan canlis.

00;40;08;17 - 00;40;10;24
Brian
ill be back as soon as you come to dinner.

00;40;11;18 - 00;40;20;24
Matt
We're on our way, my friend. We are on our way. Thanks. Brian canlist for coming on and will be seeing you soon.

00;40;21;03 - 00;40;22;09
Brian
Again, thanks.