Don’t Change What Makes Your Business Great With Steve DiFillippo, Owner and Chef of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse
Steve DiFillippo is the Owner and Chef of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse. In 1985, when Steve was just 24, he purchased Davio’s when it was a family restaurant in Boston's trendy Back Bay. Across the US, from Boston to Texas, he's grown Davio's to 12 locations, becoming one of the country's most sought-after restaurants. That first restaurant is now the hub of a rapidly growing $50 million restaurant brand group and a $10 million Davio’s brand food line. His book, It’s All About the Guest, is considered the ultimate guide to starting a restaurant, running a successful business, enjoying food, and living life.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Steve DiFillippo details the growth of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse
How to build a culture that benefits your employees, the business, and your customers
Why Davio's decided to close for three months during the pandemic
The adaptations Davio’s made to conform to changed customer behaviors
How Davio’s connects with its customers and provides a first-class customer experience
Why Steve is not worried about inflation or a recession
What is Steve excited about?
The worst advice Steve has ever received
What you’ll learn in this episode:
When faced with uncertain circumstances, should you stay true to your standards or compromise and change your business model? How do you maintain quality, keep your employees happy, and continue to deliver a superb customer experience despite tough challenges?
During the pandemic, many restaurants pivoted to takeout and delivery to keep revenue coming in and stay afloat. However, that wasn’t necessarily the best strategy for every business. Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse decided to completely close down for three months because it could not maintain the quality of its menu options through a takeout and delivery business model. When Davio’s opened back up, its spacious restaurants were well suited for dining in, and its locations easily accommodated an outside eating experience. Staying true to its standards and striving for greatness, Davio’s weathered the pandemic and came out on top.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes Steve DiFillippo, Owner and Chef at Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse, to talk about why the only pivot Davio’s made during the pandemic was to shut down for three months. Steve talks about the benefits of building a great culture, why staying open through the entire pandemic wasn’t the right choice for Davio’s, why raising prices during a recession and inflation is a sound plan, and why being the best was the path to Davio’s 37 successful years. Don’t miss this lively conversation!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
The proven models and methods of Behavior Design is the strategic foundation for your brands’ success.
Episode Transcript
Intro:
This is From Persona to Personal podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. Off Madison Ave creates meaningful moments of brand trust and influences how people interact and engage with brands. The science behind their approach taps into your audience's motivations and desires. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. Now, let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:05
Hello everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal, where I get to speak with top leaders in the food and beverage space. And before I get to today's amazing guest, I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Our behavioral approach taps into your audience's messages and motivations and prompts them to shift behavior. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success. Visit OffMadisonAve.com. That's AVE dot COM. To learn more. Now, I'd like to introduce Steve DiFillippo. He is the chef and owner of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse. Steve first purchased Davio’s in 1985, when it was just one restaurant, I believe. And he turned it into one of the most sought after restaurants in the country. Over the years he's grown the restaurant to include 11 additional locations. That's probably more on the way. And let us know that. He also authored a book called It's All About the Guest. It's the ultimate guide for starting a restaurant and running a successful business. Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve DiFillippo 1:31
Thanks for having me. I you know, I was just listening to your, your advertisement there and you know, changing people's ways there, can I use that for my kids, because I like to change a few things about my children.
Roger Hurni 1:47
I feel like you're are turning the tables on me. So I will indulge, obviously, I have a background in behavior design, which is a behavioral science that I picked up from Dr. BJ Fogg at Stanford University. And it is universal of the models and methods of human behavior are universal in terms of whether you want to exercise or, or do something in marketing, the way I use the models. But I, yes, I have been known to use that on my kids to help them do their homework. Get the class a little clean. Yeah, it's not manipulative, I will say that you can't make anybody do what they don't want to do. But with children in particular, there are inducements that you can make, and in working with the models, and I will be happy to help you or anybody else who wants to contact me with, with how to deal with that. So all right, let's get on to you. Because this is really what the show is about. Let's kick off with the first question, I'd love to know a little more about the journey from the purchase of the first restaurant to where you are today and give people some context of why you decided to expand.
Steve DiFillippo 3:05
Well, it's 37 years ago, you know, I was 24, Now I'm 61, I'll be 62 in a couple of days. You know, when I started, you know, it wasn't like it is today. I mean, just building a restaurant today is different than it was back then, you know, the, all the requirements and the laws and everything. And so when I started, you know, it was just so much easier. You know, I, I was the chef, the general manager, it was a very small restaurant, we had about 15 people in the company, you know, and I could really have my hand on everything. You know, as we grew, I, you know, I was blessed. I, my dad was president of a very large, industrial uniform company. And so I saw them and my uncle, take a little company in Boston and make it all over the country and the world. And so I kind of was involved with, I wasn't involved doing it. I just saw it as a kid. So in my mind, I always thought, wow, you know, if I could get one restaurant, you know, maybe I could grow to two or three, you know, so it was always in the back of my mind to kind of follow what my dad did just in a much different space. So that's kind of how it started. You know, I started in ‘85 with one restaurant and ‘88 was another one. And then ‘90 was another one. And I just kind of started to add restaurants and you know, but it's really about the people. Like you can't grow a company, especially in our industry, because it's really based with people, you know, chefs and food runners and servers bussers and bartenders. I mean, you know, by the time the food touches the table, it goes through about 10 people's hands. So you have to have an amazing team to grow, you know, and I did I, you know, I still have a few people from the original Davio’s which is kind of crazy. When people will last 25 years, 30 years 10-15 You know, so, we're just blessed that we have an amazing group of inner-guests is what we call them. We don't use the word employee here. We call them all inner-guests. And that's kind of how I did it. I just met great people and we grew with who we have.
Roger Hurni 5:07
I think that's wonderful. It, it can be a transient business, particularly for the, you know, some of the lower rung people that you, you end up working with, and I love the inter-guest, is that correct?
Steve DiFillippo 5:22
Inner-guests. You know what I gotta tell you, you know, we call them inner-guests, because there's the outer-guests that come through the front door, and we call the inner-guests who come to the back door. Now, I just want to say, you know what you just said, it's interesting, because, you know, you would think a dishwasher or someone like that would be turnover. In fact, a lot of our head chefs were dishwashers. So they actually work the ways up, they became prep cooks, and then line cooks, salad cooks, and then day cooks and grill cooks. They all work. In fact, Rodney Marilla, who's our corporate chef, Vice President, he was a dishwasher came in from Costa Rica 30-something years ago, ended up marrying Audrey, who was one of our servers, she became a lawyer. Now he runs he’s, you know, he's charge of all our culinary for the whole company, because I can't do it anymore. I mean, I'm still involved with the menus, but Right, he's there in the kitchen is cooking. So you know, and then Jorge and Linfield, he was a dishwasher and Andres, I mean, I could go on and on, I could name every chef and the restaurant, they've all come up the ranks, you know, and I think that's why I think we're still here, and we're still consistent. It's about, you know, people who cook, you know, I mean, you just can't bring someone off the street as they cook at Davio’s, you know, there's a lot to learn and lots of training. So that's, I think, why we're, we're so consistent.
Roger Hurni 6:39
You know, I, I think that is a testament to your culture, and how you set it up in my company. I don't say employees, I say staffers because staffers feels like someone you can work with. Employee sounds like, that's someone that works for me. And I've never, I think language is important. So I really appreciate that. I think in the context of this conversation, you've actually already answered my next question because my next question was, was, what do you think the key was for maintaining the highest quality guest experience, but it sounds like being able to find these people who love what they do, and give them a culture in which they can grow and go from a dishwasher to a head chef, or whatever else, the other position. That sounds like, that's your way of maintaining the quality guests’ experience. Is that, is that true? Or is there other things?
Steve DiFillippo 7:34
Well, you know, that's the problem we're having now, I think that people will take back in the day, you know, the 80s, in the 90s people took time, you know, they took time to learn to grow, and but now everyone's in a rush, you know, it's hard to find people, you know, that it's just so hard right now, it's so different than it used to be, you know, it's so expensive, you know, back then, you know, rents were lower, you could, you could live on a salary that was, you know, and a lot of guys work two jobs, you know, they don't want to do that anymore, you know, things have just changed. And, you know, obviously, COVID changed this country, and it's not going back, you know, I don't think, a lot of people left the industry aren’t coming back. So what we've become, I've always was a school, like, we've always took people, you know, and grew them. And now it's even more like we, you know, we're taking people who probably, probably never would have got hired back in the day. And we're literally trying to train them, you know, because they're nice people, you know, that. I know, it's, it's crazy, but I don't really look at resumes that much. I look at the person, you know, I, we interview people, and we find out that they're nice people. Because you know, Roger, this is a calling, working in this industry. We work nights, weekends, holidays, we work when everyone's off. So if you don't like want to serve, if you don't want to do this, you're gonna quit in a day to day, you know. And so we've made those mistakes, we brought people in and they go, Wow, I didn't realize you guys work so hard. I didn't realize I'm here until 1 in the morning, I didn't realize I'm, you know, I gotta come here early. It's just funny how all that works. But we're just going to keep doing what we do and find the right person and people and keep going.
Roger Hurni 9:15
I was recently interviewed for a book about company culture, and probably going to end up recommending you to this author, but I've told her that we hire for culture, and we train for skills. And it sounds like you do the exact same thing. It's the quality of the person, not the skill set that makes the difference for the quality employee.
Steve DiFillippo 9:40
Right. I mean, we don't look to take, that server from that national chain steakhouse that is probably a great server, great cook, but they have a whole way of doing things. It's not really our way. So I rather take someone who really has no training and bring them in. The thing is they have to have time they have to have patience, you know, and that it's hard right now the economy, you know, so we were really pushing people harder than we've ever had, you know, you know, the, you become a server much quicker than you used to. I mean, it still takes a long time. But I mean, you stick years, I mean, you would be a busser for years, and then a food runner for years. Now, probably you could be a busser to a server in a year, which I never thought I'd say that.
Roger Hurni 10:27
Wow. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned that you know, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the restaurant business dramatically. What was your experience? Like through that? Did the hospitality suffer? Do you have to pivot to different things? What did you do during the pandemic to make sure you got through it to the other side? Granted, we're still at it a little bit.
Steve DiFillippo 10:47
But we're still in it. No question. But well, the thing is, I didn't wait for a pandemic, to learn how to treat people right. And I think that's what happened. A lot of restaurants came back, you know, we were closed, you know, we had on March 16, 2020. I furloughed 1,054 people. I mean, imagine even myself was the first time since I was probably 14, I didn't have a job, even though the governor of Massachusetts asked me to be on the opening board. So I actually worked, I went from running this company to working for free for the government for like three months, it was actually more than it was about a year. So we, I was part of like, 15 people who decided the rules and how all the companies want to reopen, and everything was actually kind of a cool thing. I, I zoomed for, like a week, sometimes you'd have 10-12 zooms a day, it was, it was nuts. But anyway, so when we reopened, you know, pretty much everyone came back that we had, but they were different, you know, some people didn't work as many hours, some of them who used to work two jobs with us, and someone else, like cut out them or cut out us. So you know, people did come back working less, but they still had great attitudes, you know, and we, we kind of came back pretty quick, because we always treated people right, you know, and they couldn't wait to get back. You know, I'm a people person, you know, I was going out of my mind being in the house, for sure. I my kids, you know, so that was just with that. But, you know, zooming is fantastic. But you still need that interaction. You know, and I think a lot of our people that work in this industry wanted that to get back interaction. So when we came back, you know, we, we did everything we did before I didn't cut, like, I'm sure you saw a lot of restaurants cut out Mondays, or Wednesdays closed or, or they cut their menus down in half, you know. I went higher, I went like, you know what, we're gonna give better service work, because I looked around, and everyone's cutting everything. Like you go to a hotel and think there was like nobody there working right? You didn't, no one would check your baggage. It was the, it was terrible, you know, and I'm like, you know, I'm not going to Davios, you know, we're known for like, incredible hospitality. You know, and so we actually got better, you know, and I think people will appreciate it. Now, we have big restaurants, high ceilings, we have, you know, some of our ceilings are 20-foot ceilings. So, you know, obviously, our tables were 6 feet, 10 feet apart, you know, people felt very safe, when they came in. So we actually came back really strong. And obviously, the government helped us out with PPP and all that stuff. So that it gave us time to figure that out as well. You know, because that was hard. Because, you know, when you close, like, overnight, you, you lose that cash flow to pay your bills and everything. So we were, it was a struggle. But we got through it and now we aren't we're better than ever.
Roger Hurni 13:36
So I'm just a little confused as well. So it sounds like you close completely, or did you…you closed 100%? Because you're the first restaurant tour that I've spoken with that closed 100% So many of them, you're right, they closed Mondays in or certain days where they cut their menu down or, or they did all of the above with and pivoted to take out that they've never done before delivery that they've never done before. But you just close completely?
Steve DiFillippo 14:05
Well, because Roger, you know, our restaurants average there from 10,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet. A takeout operation would not support the rent, it wouldn't support anything, you know, so plus at the time I'm saying who's gonna get $75 steaks to go? I mean, it's pretty, you know, and then I have to with COVID, you know, we were so worried about getting people sick. I'm like, you know, we needed to shut down. Now, of course, the government helped with unemployment. You know, everyone was on unemployment, you know, so we were okay. You know, I mean, it was hard for me because I had to pay everyone's health insurance. So we had to deal with that. But overall, it was a safe, it was safe to be close for three months, and that way we could come back. When we could come back to what this you know, if I came back right away after, you know, did you take out? You know, I don't know about you, but takeouts terrible. I mean, it's just not good, you know? I mean, I don't care how good, you know it's just what we do take out trust me, when we came back, there was a lot of takeout. Thanksgiving, all the holidays, we did so much takeout. But I
Roger Hurni 15:13
Take out, take out at best is utilitarian, even at your favorite restaurant. I know there's a, there's a pizza place that we love that's near our house. And granted, this place is literally two miles from my house, which isn't far. Right. When we go there, we love the pizza. When we bring it home, it's like, and people say pizza travels well, I'm like, eh.
Steve DiFillippo 15:36
it gets like soggy in right. So so what I do is when I you know, it's funny, I cook a lot, right, obviously. So we have the best meat and fish. So sometimes I'll take some meat home official, I bring it home raw and cook it myself. But you can't do that with takeout. We can't say, would you like your steak cooked? Or would you? Right? So we have to cook it for the people. So, you know. So that's what I do. You know, and I must say, during COVID, we did have that people did call and say you know I'm having a barbecue this weekend. Do you mind if I buy your steaks uncooked? You know, and I'd much rather do that? Because it's much better quality.
Roger Hurni 16:11
So you closed for three months completely. And then you came back because you had literally the physical environment to make it quite a bit safer.
Steve DiFillippo 16:22
Yeah, now, we didn't come back with all our restaurants. We lost a couple in different states that we still haven't reopened, we left those places. The airport didn't open up to the following year, Logan Airport. I mean, there it is I'm pointing to it because it's right over there. It, you know, there was just nobody traveling, you know, not remember the fall of 2020, it was still dead in the airport. So we didn't open up to the spring of 21 at the airport, which was tough. One of our restaurants, Back Bay, we didn't open till September. But overall, we did come back, you know, after three months, you know, mainly.
Roger Hurni 16:59
So, so when you came back, a lot of dining customers, they they're now, they're now exhibiting a lot of different kinds of behaviors, or they're being more experimental. They're trying other kinds of things. Now that you're back, what's different now about Davio’s than before? COVID? How's that affected any marketing or operations based on these new customer desires, these new customer experiences that they're looking for?
Steve DiFillippo 17:30
Well, I think, there’s different stages. You know, when I first came back, there was when people just would not eat in a restaurant, right? They only would eat outside, we're blessed that most of our restaurants have patios, even, you know, I'm based in Boston, all that winter, from ‘20 to ‘21. In the spring of ‘21, people were sitting outside in the winter, we you know, it's funny, because Boston, we're not, we're not big eating outside kind of people, here. We are now, I mean, COVID really changed that. And all winter people, you know, we had heaters and you know, people were out there 20 degrees, it was crazy. What people did, so we had to like kind of figure that out, get new heaters and, and then our to-go business, you know, it did increase a lot. So we would do platters, like, especially for like Thanksgiving, you know, we had hundreds and hundreds of turkeys to go, Christmas Eve, you know, all the holidays, we did a lot of big, we did special menus, not just a regular menu, but special family-style kind of things. We did that now we're not doing it anymore because the demand isn't there. Like back in those days, people were not coming out of their house, you know, they literally wanted more our food but more family style. So we did that for like the first year, year and a half now, you know, things have changed quite a bit. We're still doing a lot of takeout, which, which is not as much as we did back then. But I think that's if I had to say what came good out of COVID people eating outside a lot more now. Because I think they realize, you know, this is pretty nice out here. And they continue to do it not in the winter, but when it's nice and takeout with those two things that really kind of continued on after COVID big changes for us.
Roger Hurni 19:09
I think I recently saw an article about restaurants in New York, basically took over the streets during COVID and they don't want to give them back.
Steve DiFillippo 19:21
The North End in Boston it's been great. You know, they've expanded a lot of their seating and now, you know, obviously, we have to shut it down for the winter because they, they need to plow the streets and stuff. So they're done now, but we're blessed that we have a lot of private land, like to surpass the weather here in Boston, Massachusetts, but unbelievable. This fall, just last week, it was 75 degrees. So we had our tables outside and all our restaurants. You know, it's mid November. It's kind of crazy.
Roger Hurni 19:49
It sounds great how you've done it. It seems that and correct me if I'm wrong. You're the type of restaurant where the personalization happens at the table, like the inter, the connection, the communication between your servers and your guests are the real marketing are the real, personalized experience because of that engagement. And now I can understand why you did shut down for three months because you really couldn't do that. And that's critical to the operations of your business. Am I right? Or am I off base?
Steve DiFillippo 20:24
100% right like, I'll give you an example. Like, you go out to a restaurant and they make a mistake the steaks overcooked, okay, you know, that's a physical mistake, you'll go back for steaks overcooked. Now, you go to that same restaurant, and you don't get hospitality, right. They're indifferent. The server's rude the manager, you walk in, and the host doesn't look at ya, and you just, you just have a terrible time, because they're just not nice people. Right? You just not getting hospitality. You go back to that restaurant? No. But you go back to you know, so, which is, which is crazy, because obviously, I'm a chef and the food guy, I'm telling you hospitality is more important than the food. We, we all have those grades, those amazing restaurants that we go to in our neighborhoods that the food's just okay, but we'd love to go because we have so much fun, right? And so I always thought if I could take a high-end restaurant, like Davio’s, and make it fun and happy and make our guests and our inner guests because I always thought if I tried treated our inner guests really well, it's going to come across to the outer guests. Right? So that was kind of how it all started. And I'm still doing it. 37 years later, like, you know, I just made an announcement, we're going to close, you know, Christmas, which we always do, we're going to close the day after Christmas, you know, and then we do a big meal for everybody to take home, you have a choice of 4 protein to take home for Christmas, vegetables, you know, we do this whole big dinner. I'm over 1,000 people are coming. You know, so we really try to treat everybody. Right, you know, and I think it comes it comes across to the guests, it comes across in hospitality, you know, you, you know it, Roger, I'm telling you, you've been all over the world, you go into a restaurant, and you know, the, the inner guests aren't happy or you know, you know, you don't see anyone working Mr. Manager, like, you know, the place is a mess, you know, the server comes over and he smells like smoke. Are you like, who's running this place? You know? And they might have great food. The food’s unbelievable, but I feel like I'm used coming here.
Roger Hurni 22:23
No, I get it. I had a, I did some research once and I won't name the restaurant. It was a quick casual restaurant, where you, you walked up to the counter, you ordered yourself because you were talking about like the customer service, but you ordered yourself, you found your own table, you got your own drink, and they just brought you out the food. I know that's a you know, at the time, 20 years ago, that was a fairly novel, quick casual concept. Now it's pretty much everywhere. But they ranked incredibly high by customers for great customer service. And I'm like, I hope so you did all the customer service work yourself. The reason and this was the funny thing, the reason they ranked it high was because they saw someone dressed up. And I don't mean to come across as sexist, but with like a tie or suit. Or if it was a woman or women's suit, they saw someone that appeared to be the manager. And just because there was somebody there to sort of oversee things that gave them the street cred to say, Oh, the service was great, because there was somebody there in case I needed them, as opposed to nobody being there. But a little a little off topic, but I can see, I can see completely why your staff stays that long, while the customer experience is that great. And now we're facing this other worry of inflation. And what might happen if we hit a recession? Does that change your business or at a high end? I mean, at some point, that doesn't matter if people have a certain sort of income, like you can have inflation, it's not going to affect a certain percentage. Is that a worry for you a recession? Or do you prepare differently because of your employees? How does that work for you?
Steve DiFillippo 24:09
Well, first of all, I'm a restaurant-tourist. So we worry about everything, right? Whether we worry about that's what we do. Okay, I you know, I'm, I'm always on edge, you know, and I think I never give that up because I want to be on edge I want to be I don't want to think oh, I made it, you know, Davio’s, you know, I don't, I don't want to become you know, we're not as good as we used to be kind of placed, you know, so I'm always on top of as much as I possibly can. Now, you know, I've been thinking about it, Roger, you know, think about what happened in the late 80s. The 90s. You know, we had wars, we've had planes into buildings, right? We've had recessions, we've had banks. We've had so many problems in the last 37 years. That you know, we have another recession, you know, I mean, it's we're gonna be okay, you know, I mean, we've had wars we've got you know, everyone's like, you know, I'm just an optimistic person, I think we're gonna be okay. I mean, you'll get this gas price down again, we'll get inflation and we're gonna be okay. Let's everybody's like doom and gloom and around here, you know, come on, you know, we've had it much worse. Think about it. Everyone's got a job, right? What is the unemployment? 3%? Three, I mean, we're doing okay, you know? Yeah, I mean, thank you everyone blaming the government for high inflation. If they didn't spend the money last year, the year before, we wouldn't be here. Okay. So don't be Monday morning quarterback and say, you know, we shouldn't spend all that money, could we have spent less? Probably okay. But overall, we have a great system in this country, and we're going to be fine. Okay, so I just want everyone to relax. We'll get through this recession. And we'll be on to the next one.
Roger Hurni 25:49
I don't mean to put myself in the position of being the “Hey, you kids get off my lawn” old man. But I've been through a couple of recessions, the way you've been through a couple of recessions. There's an entire generation that's never seen one. And from my observation, not everybody in that generation, but for the most part, that's the generation that's freaking out. Right. And they didn't need to calm down a little bit.
Steve DiFillippo 26:15
Yeah, we’re gonna be okay. I mean, you know, I mean, just one scene obviously goes to COVID. You know, but COVID and a lot of, you know, I don't we lost, we lost a million people. It's terrible. But, you know, in some ways, it's helped our country, you know, I think we're, you know, I always look at the bad and try to figure out how we got good out of this thing, you know, so that's kind of how I've always thought, you know, because I have to right, I'm not gonna go home and put my head on the pillow and say, I'm gonna go down today, you know, I go to work every day. And I always try to think of new things. I'm always trying to help everybody. We're really philanthropic you know, I, that's the other thing. It seems like people aren't as philanthropic as they used to be, you know, that kind of bothers me. You know, you know, we need to just keep helping people. And, and just remember, we're Americans, you know, I we're, we are the best country in the world. I just, we're just why does everyone want to come here? What does that tell you? I mean, I'm, I'm half Italian half Portuguese. I don't think people are like lining up to go to the Azores and Portugal. I mean, even though it's beautiful. You have an immigration problem, you know, right.
Roger Hurni 27:24
Well, I love your optimism. I only have a couple of other questions, because you've been really gracious for your time. So we'll try to get this wrapped up. But second, last question, what's happening now that gets you excited?
Steve DiFillippo 27:38
What happens? Well, I, I think that wow, that's a great, what, what gets me excited, I, you know, that I'm still here. I'm still, you know, I'm going to be 62 on Saturday. And I still love it. You know, I'm excited to just, you know, I work out hard, you know, I run every day. Um, you know, I'm trying to watch what I eat as much as possible. I mean, I, and I just want to keep going, you know, I feel like, I'm just getting started after all these years. It's, you know, I'm looking at sites in Florida right now, I'm looking at sites, other states. And you would think, Steve, enough is enough. You know, what, a lot of my friends are all retired, you know, they're all gone. Like, what do you I'm like, the only one left, you know, but I don't know what else that would do. You know, so what gets me excited is that I can still do this. And I still have the energy. And I still, you know, my mind is still sharp, you know, and I really think that I'm not going anywhere.
Roger Hurni 28:37
That's fantastic. I love that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot this for the last question, the other side of that coin. Because you've given amazing advice. People get good advice all the time. But what's, because I think you said it earlier, right? You look for the good that comes out of the bad to you might be teed up for this question a little bit more than others when I end my shows. But I think you can always find a life lesson or learning lesson when things are wrong as well. So my last question to you is, what's the worst advice you've ever gotten?
Steve DiFillippo 29:15
You know, I think, like, economically, I think people have said, you know, Steve, you know, your prices are high, you know, you gotta look at maybe doing a lesser meat or lesser, you know, like, messing with the concept, you know, and I wouldn't argue I said, No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna go higher. Like, what are you talking about? I want to get more expensive. I want to find the best meat possible. We're going to age it for 65 days, it's, we're going to charge $75 Well, I don't know, I think in a recession, you should lower your prices. I'm like, no, no, you're not getting it, you know. So I, yeah, I'm not going to change what I do. I think that's what happened with COVID. A lot of concepts changed, you know, they kind of succumb to the, the labor problems they succumb to the higher prices they, they gave up and they're gone. They’re gone, you know, and that's not what I how I think I, I think that you should get better. You know, it's a race to the bottom, I reached the top. You know, that's it my father told me, he said always quality, quality quality, you shouldn't you can never go wrong if you're the best, you know, it'd be the best if you're cutting costs. I mean, I cut don't get me wrong, I look at the P&Ls like crazy. Okay. And I look at where we can save money, but I'm not cutting the quality. Okay, you know, so that's the difference.
Roger Hurni 30:36
I understand 100% that’s been great advice. I had been speaking with the sorry, I had been speaking with Steve DiFillippo, the Chef and Owner of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse and the author of It's All About the Guest, a book I plan to go read, I would highly recommend you do as well, just from this conversation, I can tell there's going to be a lot of, a lot of good lessons that transcend the restaurant business. Steve, where can people learn more about you and Davio’s?
Steve DiFillippo 31:09
Very simple, davios.com just go on their website, and Google my name, Steve DiFillippo. A lot of videos out there. I've done a lot of interviews, and obviously the book, it's great. It's a lot of fun. You know, I it's, it's a great book to learn about just not just restaurants, but about just industry. You know, like, my landscaper guy loves the book, you know, it doesn't matter what industry and I do speeches all over the country, from vast, different industries. Because the way my mind thinks it's not just for restaurants, and I think that's why the book was so good. It's funny, little sexual stuff in there from back in the day, you know, so, you know, which I probably couldn't write now, I don't know, I probably have to rewrite it. You know, stuff back when I was a kid, you know, just, I had to give the feeling of what the industry was like back in the 70s in the 80s. And that's kind of what it is at the beginning and then, you know, it's a very professional book. I mean, I don't, I don't I'm not to swear, I don't swear. So, you know, it's not like, you know, some of these books, I find a little crude, but there were swear words that people have said to me, so I repeat them. I just don't say them from me.
Roger Hurni 32:16
Alright. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. I'm Roger Hurni. This has been From Persona to Personal and I look forward to seeing you all next time.
Outro:
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