Finding Success Through Authenticity With Jonathan Weathington, CEO at Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar
Jonathan Weathington is the CEO of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar. Starting out of a 960-square-foot former hair salon, the Shuckin’ Shack little beach bar hangout has expanded into seven states and multiple locations. Jonathan has been featured on television and in publications, including FSR, The Wall Street Journal, and Good Morning America.
When he joined Shuckin’ Shack in 2014, Jonathan started as the Director of Franchise Development and quickly became CEO. Before Shuckin’ Shack, he gained experience working in various consumer-centered frontline and management positions dating back to 1999 for companies including The North Face, Best Buy, Blockbuster Video, Hilton Hotels, and other hospitality startups and small businesses.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Jonathan Weathington describes the roots of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar
The importance of culture in defining the vibe and driving the success of a restaurant
Jonathan explains what they look for when vetting potential franchises
Why hiring the right people who possess the restaurant’s core values is critical
Hard skills versus soft skills in business, and which holds more value
How Shuckin’ Shack stayed connected with its customer base during the pandemic
What makes a trip to Shuckin’ Shack feel like a real, genuine customer experience?
The worst advice Jonathan has ever received
What you’ll learn in this episode:
How do some restaurants thrive while others dwindle away? You can open a beautiful restaurant, serve the finest food, and it can fail if you don’t have the right people with the right attitude from the very start. So where do you begin?
Known for his no-frills approach to hospitality, Jonathan Weathington of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar gets the best out of his teammates and co-workers through a combination of analytical thinking, servant leadership, and a reliance on an authentic culture. He says what matters the most is the people you bring into your organization. When you strip away everything else, it’s the only thing that matters. Theoretically, anybody can open up an oyster bar, but the competitive edge is the culture, and it’s what ultimately helps companies grow. As Jonathan says, you attract what you put out there. It’s also the strategy he uses to vet franchisees and ensure that their core values are aligned.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes Jonathan Weathington, CEO at Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar, for a conversation about what the competitive edge is for growing and scaling a restaurant. Jonathan shares how Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar has found success through its culture and core values, how they vet potential franchisees, connecting with customers through its authentic vibe, and why they strive to maintain a lively buzz every day of the week.
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 0:00
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 0:35
Hello everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to speak with top leaders changing customer behavior so they can propel their brands forward. Before I get to today's guest, our sponsor is 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 motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. And if you're not shifting your audience's behaviors, you truly can’t unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavior models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success. Visit offmadisonave.com. To learn more. Today I'm very excited to have Jonathan Weathington. He's the CEO of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar. That's a little bit of a tongue twister. Before joining Shuckin’ Shack in 2014 he was the director of franchise development. Jonathan worked in various consumer centered frontline and management positions dating back to 1999. For companies including the North Face Best Buy Blockbuster Video, Hilton Hotels, and a number of other hospitality startups and small businesses. He has been featured in FSR magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America and many other regional national publications, known for his “no frills get to the point” approach to hospitality and leadership. Jonathan, welcome to the show.
Jonathan Weathington 2:01
Hey, thanks for having me.
Roger Hurni 2:03
I didn't get anything wrong there. Right, anything that needs to be corrected?
Jonathan Weathington 2:06
You nailed it, actually, you,
Roger Hurni 2:08
Okay!
Jonathan Weathington 2:09
It was a toungue twister on the last name either.
Roger Hurni 2:12
Well, I've been known to, to mess up quite a bit. So, but thank you very much for the compliment. I know that the restaurant started in 2007. In a space that was like, less than 1,000 feet, I'm not mistaken. And it's grown really nicely. Not just because it's interesting concept, I know you've done the franchise thing. I'd like to give the listeners a good description of the roots of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar and what the restaurant vibe is like.
Jonathan Weathington 2:44
Sure, that one's you know, it's easy for me to talk about roots and start up and the I guess the birth story if you will of Shuckin’ Shack because it's still so close to what our growth story is. So those those times are one in the same, which is we opened a restaurant with the intention of it surviving. Number one, obviously, that's what a lot of restaurant owners want to happen is for them to stay in business. But number two, to have a good time with good people. That's what we were after. While I'm not a founder of the brand, our primary goal of the founders was to stay open, and to have a bar in their 20s. And so for many 20 year old guys, having a bar is kind of the apex, if you will, what they've considered success at that point and a bar at the beach, no less. And so that became a goal. And it became something that they wanted to do over time. And the setting was there already. So Carolina Beach is, was at the time and still kind of is a sleepy beach town, and didn't have an oyster bar. And so Matt and Sean, the founders of the brand, saw this need in the area and scrounge together with a code as far as capital is concerned and decided to open an oyster bar. And that happened to be in a 960 square foot former hair salon, and had never been a restaurant before. Neither of them had ever been really in the restaurant industry at all certainly never owned a restaurant. And their goal was to meet a need. And that's exactly what they did. And so as far as the vibe is concerned, you know, I believe a, a culture of a brand is basically the output of the of the parts, right? So you can you can try to dictate culture, but really culture dictates exactly what's happening within the four walls. And that's a, that's a representation of what's going on. And so the culture became a beach bar hangout. And over time, it evolved a little bit into a dive bar that served great food. And so we've maintained a lot of those roots and it's become really a hidden gem. We've never expanded that footprint of that location. It does very well as far as total sales volume. And we've maintained a lot of those roots even as we've grown even as we franchise into seven states and multiple locations, the culture still remains a really authentic coastal environment.
Roger Hurni 5:08
Yeah the, I can't speak enough to the culture. And I'm glad to hear you say that. I think it was Jack Welch maybe that said, “Culture eats strategy for lunch?” You know, you don't I've talked to many entrepreneurs and CEOs who, yeah, a lot of them do have experience in the industry, but so many don't. But they have a sense of culture that is incredibly difficult to replicate. And that's really the competitive edge is the culture because anybody can just open up an oyster bar, theoretically. But getting the culture right, is what ultimately helps companies grow. And now you're in charge of taking care of that. And that's probably a good segue, really, for my next question. You're a franchise model. How do you find other people who buy into that culture, and are willing to continue to nurture it and not change it for the worst?
Jonathan Weathington 6:05
Yeah, it's tough. The, the biggest, the biggest driver of that, and you essentially you, you attract what you put out there. So from a from a marketing standpoint, because I think this is a dip, a toe dip into marketing and into prospecting for folks who might be interested in opening a franchise location. From a marketing standpoint, you have to altruistically be exactly who you are. And so you can't make empty promises of from a culture standpoint, or from a company, especially from a company culture standpoint. But even right down to a personal culture standpoint, you can't market yourself as something that you're not because over time that erodes away, and your true intentions come through. And I say it all the time. I mean, I say it in magazines, and podcasts and TV and radio. What matters most is the people that you bring into the organization. And that's really at times when you strip away everything. That's the only thing that matters, because you're right, somebody else can open an oyster bar, we've seen it happen. And we've also seen them close, because they don't have the right people in the right seats. And so when that's one of the primary drivers of what you're doing, as far as expansion is concerned, and you're constantly and consistently talking about people and making sure they're in the right place, I think you're doing it right, I think you're doing it correctly. And so for us to attract those certain people, we have to consistently talk about those things. When we hold approval days, or discovery days for interested franchise comm candidates coming in from all over the country. We tell them, one of the very first things that we say is, you can open a beautiful restaurant, and you can spend all of your life savings on that restaurant, and it can miserably fail if you don't have the right people with the right attitude when you open that restaurant. And so we're very upfront open and honest about those things. And that's one of the ways I believe that we've been successful is because of our honesty and that aspect.
Roger Hurni 8:07
Yeah, I know that you from just reading abou it in your bio, you believe in this very real, genuine customer experience. But that seems like there's also that extends to the franchisees. Is there anything special, we'll get to the customer experience in the marketing there, but I'm just, on the franchisee side. Is there anything you do to really vet them that could be an interesting lesson for listeners?
Jonathan Weathington 8:33
A lot. So obviously, there's financial requirements and those what we would consider kind of administrative things that we all look for ahead of time. The one thing that we do that I think that we do a really good job of from a from a connection to potential franchisees is that we ask them questions unrelated to business. And that's important to us, we need to know exactly. Number one, where do your priorities lie. So our core values, we're looking at respect integrity, sustainability and excellence. And so for us, a big part of respect is treating others well. And so we want to know how they treat others well, currently in their community, you should be doing something that improves the lives of others around you. And that can be in whatever form you want it to be. If you're volunteering, if you're really into volunteerism, you'd be making consistent donations, have you, you know, go to PTA meetings or go to charities or do whatever you want. We're asking questions about what they do outside of what they plan to do in their business, who they are as people that's, that's really important. Because at the end of the day, after the bills are paid, and you go home at night, what are the things that you're thinking about, you know, what are the things that you're dreaming about? Where are your intentions? And so for us intentions are a big deal. We ask a lot of questions about like I ask almost every approval day. It's five o'clock on Friday. You just had a hell of a week, whether that be good or bad and your own definition, where are you going? And what are you doing. And some people say, I need to decompress, I want to go home, I don't want to talk to anyone, I need to be away from people, you know, I want to I want to have dinner by myself. And then others say, if it was a good week, I'm calling my friends, and we're meeting at my house. And we're throwing a barbecue because I love spending time with my friends and family. When I've had a good week, I want to surround myself with other people. That's the candidate we're after. Because they're after this idea of sharing that success, or even using that that family group or that friend group as an insulator to failure. And so when we can drill really, really deeply on people and understand what their intentions are, and with whom they surround themselves, it gives us an idea of what the restaurant life for them is going to be like.
Roger Hurni 10:56
That's, that's great I feel like I'm talking to my brother from another mother. One of our big core values when like, companies is curiosity, and I'm the one that will always ask the offbeat questions like, What's your guilty amazing pleasure? When's the last time you stayed up all night? Why? Or what's something you thought you knew that you later found that you were wrong about? The answer is less relevant? The answer, I'm not looking for a specific answer. That's really the relevant part. I'm just looking for how you answer that. I want the people who will read a book they haven't read before, you know, or think they might not like or listen to certain kinds of music, or travel or study another language I, that curiosity factor is really big. And so many CEOs just fail to realize that you hire on core values, and you train for skills, you know, and that's not unlike your founders, right? I mean, they had the core values, they have the culture, they train themselves for the food business, right, you can teach people that, but you can't teach people, you know, they're there.
Jonathan Weathington 11:58
I was hired, I had no restaurant skills whatsoever. I had never worked in a restaurant, I had been a co-owner of a bar for two years, that did not serve food. But for me, a lot of those hard skills and hard skills being quantitative things, learning about food costs, learning about labor costs, learning about everything that's involved in the running of a restaurant, those were those were learned over time for me. What I did have a really good foundation was people skills. And so I believe that I know that I was hired, and I was brought in as a partner on my personality, because I am a problem solver. And I am a person that's going to figure things out that is a part of my personality. And in early stage development, or even opening a franchise going right into your franchisees we ask questions about how do you solve problems? What what others consider you a problem solver? Those are important details of running a business owning a business, and also even serving as a litmus test for the propensity to be successful in that business. And so you're right, it's soft skills, I think, at times are far more important than hard skills, because those hard skills can be developed over time, really.
Roger Hurni 13:09
So you came on in 2014, started getting some franchisees. And I know we're not too far on the other side of this, and maybe we are still dealing with it. I can't ever talk to anyone with a restaurant and the pandemic, particularly because yours is in bar in restaurant, a cultural experience, right? And so, what happened during the pandemic? How did you navigate that? And what lessons were learned? That's a lot of questions to unpack.
Jonathan Weathington 13:41
As far as what happened, you know, I think everybody remembers March 13, through 17, 2020. And exam. I mean, I can tell you exactly where I was when we got shut down. We were working on a summer directive to send out to our franchisees, we have been talking about this thing called COVID. I was sitting at T1 in our downtown Wilmington location. And we got my all of our phones buzzed at the same time with that email that says at five o'clock today, you're closing. So I remember exactly where I was when that happened. So what happened was from from our point of view, and looking at the pandemic, and the big the big word during the pandemic was pivot. How do we pivot? Right? Pivoting was was an overused word at the time. Our thought process was, especially as it got more advanced, and we started learning this was going to stick around for a little bit, we've got to kind of figure out how we're number one is going to survive, because I think that's a very, that's a very apt term for many people because the industry retracted more than 7% during the pandemic, which is an enormous amount in such a short time. So for us how we were going to survive is we were going to stay connected with our customer base. We knew from a nuts and bolts standpoint, we were looking got, you know, the proposition of delivery. And where most companies headed, especially full service brands, who started shrinking their footprint and doing delivery, as you know, 40-50-80% of their business, we knew that we were not going to be able to compete with ubiquitous things that people do in delivery, which is pizza, and Chinese, and Japanese, and all of those things that that everybody gets delivered, myself included, what we decided to do, as opposed to, in, quite frankly, losing money on some of those delivery services, what we decided to do is take marketing money, and use that towards the marketing messaging of “If you want to go, come pick it up.” And it worked. And it worked really well. For us, we did almost no delivery during the pandemic, we may be one of the one of the only full service brands that did almost no delivery, for a couple of reasons. Number one, seafood, seafood doesn't travel all that well, generally speaking. And so what we didn't want to do was to double down on delivery. And we tried a lot of different packaging, it's not for lack of try. So despite that, what we didn't want to do is double down on delivery, the food arrives at the customer's home, they have a really bad experience. And then all of a sudden, when in person dining is allowed. Again, we've shot ourselves in the foot, they're not going to try us because it was a terrible experience. So what we decided to do was “if you want food to go come get it”, and it worked. And then one of the other major initiatives that we did was basically not going dark. Our marketing or VP of Marketing, Darren did a great job of with this mantra of “do not go dark”, meaning you need to be consistently active on social media, you need to be consistently active with your customer base. That was not the time to shut your doors and turn off your lights and cry, woe is me, you've got to be out there, gotta get out there. If you know your customers call them, if you know their phone number, text them, email them, whatever you can do to stay in touch with your customer base do that. And we did exactly that. And it worked. And so that's one of the ways that we fought through it, which was far different than many other full service brands. And being an experienced brand. The the mindset that we took was, as long as we stay connected, we don't go dark, when they choose to dine out safely, they're going to choose us. And that's exactly what happened and so that's that's how we that's essentially was our our navigation tool through the pandemic.
Roger Hurni 17:32
I think that's great. You're actually the first restaurant I've interviewed for they said, Yeah, delivery doesn't work for us, or we're gonna just have come get your food. It feels like you were able to translate that real and genuine customer experience in the bar to a real and genuine customer experience at home as best you could. There were never any issues with the quality of the seafood. I mean, I take it that your trade areas fairly close. It's not like people are traveling 20 miles to pick up oysters.
Jonathan Weathington 18:08
You know, we have demographics that tell us our you know, our average, or our long shot, customer travels up to 22 minutes to visit us. But our average customer is going to be a hell of a lot closer. And that has a lot to do with our real estate and site selection and all of those things, right. And so for us, we're a lot of times near rooftops, near kitchens, near bedrooms, we're a five minute to 10 minute drive for most people, we do play in that convenience factor from a location standpoint, because we're a full service restaurant and bar bars a big part of what we do. And so we want people to be close to home so that, you know, it's a five minute Uber ride home. That's kind of what we're after. And so that that really helped us actually, throughout the pandemic, you know, we're not, we're not out on a lonely island near a highway, most of our locations are not right off 95 were more in the anchored shopping centers or non traditional locations that are near rooftops. And that really played to our advantage.
Roger Hurni 19:05
Yeah, most people don't realize that the smaller the footprint, the smaller the trade area, you get really big restaurants, you just pull from a larger population base and it makes things like delivery, or even coming to get it and having the food travel well back home even if you're picking it up. You know, really difficult.
Jonathan Weathington 19:24
That's right. Yeah and when you have a naturally a smaller footprint anyway, our average restaurant about 2,500 square feet and so that helps us tremendously from an overall volume standpoint, in that our occupancy cost or gross occupancy costs are generally lower just because of that. So from a financial accounting standpoint, for us to pay the bills every month, it takes a little bit less if that makes sense.
Roger Hurni 19:46
It makes it feel not just more intimate but it also gives a sense that it's popular so like that saying, you know if you're gonna have a party and invite 20 people put up 15 chairs just because it makes it feel more crowded.
Jonathan Weathington 20:03
Our first restaurant, our initial restaurant has 32 seats. And guess what, if you ride down on a Tuesday night, it looks full. It may not be full, but it looks full. And yeah, we we've tried to do that we've tried to maintain that in many of the restaurants that we still build is that, you know, it's great, everybody is going to kill it on Friday and Saturday night, everybody in the restaurant industry is going to kill it on those two nights. But what are you doing five other nights in a week. And that's really, really, really important. And so we've tried to create intimate spaces. I mean, there's some science that goes into it on our side, I won't get too too deep into it, but our tables are a little bit smaller. And so whenever you go into our restaurants and look at our tables, it makes it look like they're always full of food and drink. And so it makes for great photograph opportunities, photography opportunities. And so we do like some small things that really help with the culture and the feel of the restaurant. Our bars are always we do the absolute minimum ADA requirements between the bar and the seating, we want it to feel crowded, we want it to we want people to, to shoulder up to one another, so that they're forced to have conversations, we don't like to see a lot of cell phones in our restaurants. And so we don't have any technology implementation at the table, you pay like, like you used to pay five years ago, you know, a server brings you a check. And that's how you pay. And so for us that that people interaction, we're giving ourselves the best shot possible to have as much human interaction as possible. That's kind of what we're doing.
Roger Hurni 21:36
So that human interaction, I take this, that real and genuine customer experience that you talked about, has that helped really grow the brand from a from a word of mouth perspective.
Jonathan Weathington 21:47
I think that's been the biggest driver of the brand. In my opinion that has, we've consistently seen feedback from our customer base, and that they feel like the place has always been there. And they feel like it's their hometown cheers, or whatever it may be, you can compare it to, you know, your hometown bar restaurant. And for us, we take that very seriously, because, you know, I've worked in very, very multibillion dollar companies, and, you know, some good, some bad, and some are really good at certain aspects of it. But when we started expanding Shuckin’ Shack, one of the things that we constantly talk about is, we asked ourselves the question, why were the first two locations so successful? And the resounding answer hasn't been, it's because it felt genuine and authentic. And so as we repeat that those location success, hopefully, in new markets and new franchise markets, we need to maintain those roots. And so the authenticity root is above and beyond anything else that we do. We don't our servers, and bartenders don't have spiels at the table. Our hostesses and hosts don't have spiels when people walk in the door, if we even run a hostess and host really, we're doing our jobs, our servers, and our bartenders are telling people when they walk in the door, Hey, have a seat, I'll bring you drinks in just a second. It's not this, you know, calculated spiel of 26 points where you have to mention drinks, specials and food specials and happy hour. And here's what's on TV. And do you want this do you want no one cares? When they're walking in the door, they've probably already looked at your menu online statistics show that they have, especially if you're a first time visitor, they've been served an ad, at some point digitally. So they already know what they want to order. You don't need to tell them all that stuff. It's not important. What's important is making sure they get exactly what they want, and so that's what we're after.
Roger Hurni 23:36
You know, I'm a, I'm a few years older than you not that much, but a few years older than you. They call that kind of marketing that “cheers model”. You know, come as you are and everybody knows your name. And there's very few places that can really do that in a genuine way. And from a consumer behavior perspective, it turns it into this very personalized experience that each of those people take with him. And that was really what drives word of mouth and you can create that. Like that's not just always by happenstance, like you can you can actually manufacture that businesses. Are you able to translate that? Or how do you translate that into marketing to find new customers who may not have heard of you? What do you do from a marketing perspective?
Jonathan Weathington 24:21
So in this I get asked this question often because it looks like we're marketing geniuses, but the in some aspects, but the best marketing is excellent operations. And when you turn people from an operational standpoint, when you blow a customer away, not only by the food and beverage, but moreso by the authentic experience that they're having, they they're having they will tell other people and that will go faster than any digital campaign you can ever do. Your return rate on that is 100% if they tell another person if you know one of my best friends comes to me and says out of the blue and says you You've got to visit this place, I'm going there as soon as humanly possible. Because if it gets the checkmark, and it gets the endorsement of someone that I trust, and they're using that name specifically towards me, they thought of me after their visit to this restaurant, I'm definitely going. And it's, you know, we've, we've turned it into a complicated metric of net promoter score. And what Net Promoter Score essentially tells us is, are other people actively talking positively about their restaurant, which converts other guests to come in for the first time. That's, that's what we're after. And then from a marketing standpoint, new customer acquisition, we're capitalizing on those things, you know, we're actually taking physical screenshots of reviews. And we'll take a screenshot of a review, and we'll post it and we'll see it take off. And then what you get as a customer base, when you post those things, you get a customer base, a rabid fan base, that we'll respond to that and say, no, these guys are legit, you need to try it. And then the next step is you actually get a fan base that police's and they will actively actively recruit people. Let's go here, we need to try this place. Let's let's meet here at five today, what are you doing this afternoon? What are we doing this weekend, let's make this a part of our plans. That's the absolute best marketing that you can do. The only way to experience an experiential brand like us, the best way you can do it is in person. The second best way is for us to do non traditional marketing, which is something that I think that we excel at, because, because we do believe in authenticity in the things that we do, we're allowed pretty wide lanes in what we do, we just want to have fun. And I think if we communicate that well to our customer base, they're likely to come have fun with us.
Roger Hurni 26:43
That's it just goes to my point that every every point of contact is a brand point of contact. And it's a good lesson, I want to dive down into one little other marketing thing, because you're literally the only restaurant in this kind of with this kind of character makeup that doesn't have an app that at least I could see what's going on. So why do you think that is because you so but if someone wants to order, they can probably order online, they can call you order online, you can order online. So you found value in not having that technology.
Jonathan Weathington 27:24
Because why the human interaction is absolutely critical to success is critical to success. In order and listen, don't get me wrong, we tried to launch a loyalty app in 2017. And it felt like it failed unlike anything we've ever failed at our customer, the feedback from our customer base was like, I'm coming here anyway. We don't we don't need a loyalty app, we found that we're, number one, and this kind of gets into the nuts and bolts, we're not a discount driven brand. So that helps us tremendously in that we're not a couponing brand, we're not a buy one get one brand. We don't do a whole lot of that. And so from a loyalty standpoint, our loyalty is driven by exactly as you said, the cheers model are loyalty driven, because people want to sit in our restaurants. And that is our primary business, our target businesses a very low percentage, it's come back down after COVID. And so the loyalty is created out of this qualitative interaction that happens between humans. And so we don't do online ordering. We don't do app based ordering. We don't have an app, we do very little delivery. I just believe in the power of people, man. Like I don't I don't know any other way to say it. Other than
Roger Hurni 28:38
No, no, I, I think you you found this niche that allows you to have these genuine human to human connections and allow people to be themselves. And I got to think that a lot of people don't plan to come to your restaurant, it happens impromptu where people are like, this is a great place. And maybe they'll say we'll go on Friday or Tuesday, but I I feel like a lot of it is like, Hey, let's go here tonight. This is great. You know, creating that kind of atmosphere is just, it's just special
Jonathan Weathington 29:14
businesses is special to us. The sales, retention rates are extremely high and all of our new locations because people just feel comfortable right away. That's, that's a really, really important part of dining out. You know, if I'm making personal dine out decisions, I want to go to places where I don't feel like I have to be someone that I'm not. And so that's an important part of why we do what we do is that we're accepting of anyone that comes in whether it's in a suit and tie or flip flops and board shorts, it doesn't matter. We're going to certainly get food and gray beverage and we're going to treat you well and that's how we win.
Roger Hurni 29:50
The funny thing is that they're they're comfortable being in that atmosphere. If someone comes in after work and in a sport coat, and someone's in flip flops and a T shirt Take up whatever from the beach. They're both comfortable at the same time they in the restaurant, see, it's really
Jonathan Weathington 30:04
an hour ago, I was in our downtown location. And there was a, I don't have a husband wife or not. They were both dressed up entirely like, suit, tie everything. And two tables down was a family that was not dressed up in any stretch of the imagination, gym shorts, flip flops, tank tops, like, that's just the way it happens in our stores.
Roger Hurni 30:29
I need to clearly make a visit. I have a couple, just a couple more questions I'm carrying the curious things seem to be really dialed in. What What's the biggest challenge right now? Like what's keeping you up at night? I think
Jonathan Weathington 30:41
the biggest challenge right now is as you grow, there's a desire to grow. And then there's this not necessarily competing. But there's this consistent reminder of continually doing what you're doing. So I think as a, as a person who who runs a business, the thing that keeps me up at night is maintaining your roots and making sure that what we're doing I guess is equivalent to how we started, or maybe pays homage to how we started and I don't want to lose brand identity, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I don't think we are but it's as you grow and you get further from the source. Maybe that's the perfect way to say it, you get the source. You often think about how are we going to communicate this like we're going into the Midwest. Now, Midwesterners don't necessarily have the same life experience as people who grew up on the East Coast or near the beach. How can we communicate that? How can we put that in a bottle and serve it up? And so that's what I think about a lot.
Roger Hurni 31:51
Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. All my conference rooms in each of the spaces that have ever been in have a garage door as the entrance because my company started my garage. And I never want anyone to forget that. But I think that's great. You. Here's my last question. Because there's it's been a great conversation. I think there's some really good learnings here. And I think you can learn from anything. And it's just us. Right? So what's the worst advice you've ever gotten? Could be try a nap or it could be delivery? But I'm kind of curious. What's the worst advice you've ever gotten?
Jonathan Weathington 32:30
Oh, man. See, it's different for me. I'm a little cynical. Like, I don't read business books. And so I don't try to put bad advice in front of me. Just think, like, just be pragmatic, Be practical. But the worst advice I've ever gotten? Oh, I mean, I've been told, I think probably consistently throughout my life, not anyone that I'm close to have. Essentially question why are you doing this? Like, why are you doing this? You know, almost this questioning aspect of it. Like, play it safe. Like, you're a smart guy, you could go do something else or you could well, yeah, I'm a smart guy, that's why I'm doing this. Okay, I'm believing and because I can see the return on it.
Roger Hurni 33:23
Well, then we will chalk that question up to play it safe is the worst advice you've ever gotten.
Jonathan Weathington 33:27
Maybe that is maybe that's
Roger Hurni 33:31
well, you know what, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And that's, that's really good words to live by. So I really appreciate the conversation today. I have been speaking with Jonathan Weathington. He's the CEO of Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar. And I'd say that slowly, so get it right, Jonathan, where can people learn more about you and checking check?
Jonathan Weathington 33:56
Sure. So we're all over social media if you just search the Shuckin’ Shack or Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar, but our website is the shuckinshack.com, no G in Shuckin’. And then of course, we're on from a business standpoint, we're on LinkedIn, we have a very active LinkedIn page, and very active Instagram page as well.
Roger Hurni 34:14
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, again, thank you so much. I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal and I will see you all next time.
Outro 34:24
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
