Jon Taffer: The Reaction Business
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. It's me, Rob Lowe. So I love Bar Rescue. I may not drink, but I still love bars. And I'm obsessed with just the notion that, you know, what does it take to make something work? You know, I love that discussion. No matter what you're talking about in life, relationships, jobs, work, restaurants, movies, what does it take to make it work? John Taffer is an expert at this.

He's super funny on the show, super interesting. And I'm about to find out what makes things work all through life with one of the experts. So let's bring in Jon Taffer. First of all, I got to go right to my favorite thing about you is the NFL prime ticket thing.

I mean, you've changed my life. Thank you. That's deep, buddy. I don't think life's worth living without that Sunday cornucopia of choices. Yeah. We just crossed the 25th anniversary this year. And I'm proud. All the other leagues modeled it off that same format that we did for NFL Sunday ticket back then.

And that was an amazing time to launch that and be a part of that was something else. And if you remember, Rob, when we first launched it, it was only available in bars for the first two years. You couldn't get it at home. Oh, my God. That's right. I forgot about that. So you had to go to bars to see it. And then, of course, which was great for my industry. But then, of course, it opened up to the residential packages that everybody had it. But that was a great time.

So walk me through how that how you came to be involved with it and what that was like, because, I mean, I'm not being facetious. It's such a big deal, such a part of my life. And then, of course, that led to all the new things we have, which is, you know, the the red zone and, you know, all of the ways you can watch movies.

football today, which are just unbelievable and just game-changing if you're a sports fan. How did it all begin for you? Well, it's an example of you never know the kind of twists and turns that life is going to take. I had one operator of the year in a sports bar business, and I got a phone call from a company called ComSat, who managed all the satellites up in the sky for broadcast companies and even military satellites. They managed those signals.

and they owned some of the video services and hotels, the pay-per-view movies and hotels and some of those types of services and stuff. They approached my consulting company and said, would you do a feasibility study on out-of-market programming?

Which meant if you were sitting in LA, you could buy the Dallas Cowboys signal. And you'd get just the signal to that one game and you'd pay $30 or whatever the heck the fee was to get that signal. They wanted to know if it was feasible for the bar industry to enter such a business model. So they paid me a lot of money to do a feasibility study on buying one game.

called out of market. We did the feasibility study, presented it to them. We determined how much bars could pay, what kind of licensing was required, all that kind of stuff. We gave it back to them. They came back to us a second time and said, this is very cool. What would this look like? I mean, what would the programming and what would the package look like? And we started with this one game that you could get. At that time, Rob, compression happened.

And compression changed the world, which meant you could receive multiple signals with one transponder. Before that, for my sports bars, I needed like a quarter acre in the back for those huge analog dishes. Remember those big beasts? Oh, the famous satellite dishes, right? But it took a quarter of an acre to pull in eight games, right, on eight different dishes. So we then designed a programming model. They came back to us a third time and said, would you design the business? Who would buy it? And we did a list of prospects.

They then took my work to the NFL. NFL said, wow, this is pretty amazing. Let's do it ourselves. And they put me on a board of NFL Enterprises and we rolled out NFL Sunday Ticket. There's so much interesting stuff in that. I mean, not the least of which is what you led with, which is you never know where life is going to take you and how...

Basically, being great at making bars run great puts you on the board of an NFL company, right? Yeah, you never can think of. One day somebody comes up to me and says, you should be on TV, John. So I had done restaurant consulting work for Paramount over the years. So I go to Paramount. Wait, what do Paramount and restaurants have to do with each other? Well, like Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is a licensed Paramount property, right? There's some properties like that. Does Tom Hanks get any of that, do you think? I don't think so.

I think probably the owners of the movie. Well, then again, if he has back end on a movie, in theory he would, right? Yeah, right, exactly. Okay, so it would be under his back end. I guess so, sure. So I go to Paramount, I meet with the head of TV and he looks at me and I won't use the language he used, Rob, but he looks at me and goes, you will never freaking be on television. You're too old, you're not good looking enough, it'll never happen. Yeah.

So I drove out of the gates of Paramount, sort of bummed out, thinking I'll never see these things again. And I shot my own sizzle reel. And I sent it to four production companies. And I got four out of four calls and offers from all four.

So I wound up being on television after the pilot and the whole season in less than a year. And 12 years later, I'm still at it, buddy. So you never know is my point. You never know. And don't take no for an answer. Yeah. I think the only person who can say no to you is you really, right?

Right. That's really true. Was the sizzle reel a condensed version of what we would know to be an episode of Bar Rescue? Yeah, I went out to Hermosa Pier. A friend of mine had a bar. I went in there on Saturday. The bar was empty. And I walked around. I screamed and yelled. I found all these things. The next day was NFL Sunday. The place was packed.

So I went back in and finished the episode with it packed. And in three minutes, I told the story of Bar Rescue. It's such a great, it's such an addicting show because I'm always fascinated with excellence. And also there's just that thing in it. And I don't mean to sound as judgmental as I'm about to sound, but like, just because you love food doesn't mean you have any right to open a restaurant. Yeah.

Well said. Just because you love movies doesn't make you qualified to be a critic, to be a director, to be an actor. Just because you like booze sure the hell doesn't make you a bartender, right? Or a bar owner. And...

You've done a deep dive every week on that exact phenomenon. Yeah. Also, when I was in college, I loved cultural anthropology and the study of the human brain and primates, Rob, and primate reactions and their cultural community. I love that stuff. Me too. So to me, Bar Rescue is so human to human.

And what are their primal reactions to situations? And what are their controlled reactions to situations? At the end of the day, remodeling the bar is easy, buddy, right? I can do that all day long with my eyes closed. It's fixing them and making them have different priorities or come up with a different thought process or a different result. That's the challenge. And again, sort of comparing it to my world, take a bad writer, to turn them into a good writer, you have to change how they feel, how they feel.

How they think about stories. What's important in this scene? The bad writers have no idea what's important or what they think is important is actually what is not important. And, you know, I think the same is probably true in in in in the restaurant slash bar business.

You know, it's interesting. I'm the executive producer of my show and I haven't had a network executive on set in years and I control what I do and it's all completely real, Rob. I don't know what I'm going to do before I do it. And I got cameramen who are great at running around backwards to make it all happen. And, you know, I find that authenticity is key to what I do. But in the beginning, I needed producers to tell me, John, this is the story. This guy's going to do that or that guy's going to do that. Now,

Now I have no producers that are really leading me in story and I have to sniff out that story in real time.

I have to find the villain. I have to find the hero. I have to find that person who's resistant. And it's fascinating in reality TV, Rob, to do it in real time that way and still find that compelling story within this chaos of trying to remodel the bar. It's an adrenaline dump. Unlike I produced a pilot about young people in Washington, D.C., and how the 20 somethings make that town run.

And it was going to be sort of a behind the scenes look at being single, young on the grinding it out in D.C. It never went anywhere. It was a really good pilot, but just never went anywhere. And then, of course, I did a reality show with my sons called The Low Files, where it was basically Anthony Bourdain parts unknown meets Scooby Doo. And which even as I say it, I go, I would be I would have done 100 years of that show. We did one season. It was great. But the amount of work.

Was unbelievable. The amount of hours, the intensity of it. And, you know, we were looking for, you know, supernatural stuff. So you'd go there and maybe nothing would happen. And you had to find an episode out of it somehow. Yeah. And that came down to you to deliver that episode somehow. That's right. And you just never know. Sometimes the episodes where nothing happened were my favorite, ended up being my favorite episodes. And you just don't know. Do you have a favorite episode?

or an experience of making one? Yeah, I got a couple. I was able to rescue some bars and places after hurricanes and floods and disasters. And those always mean the most to me, Rob, because these are people who really worked hard and Mother Nature took it away from it. They got a raw deal.

You know, and they lost their business when they were doing everything right. So I got to go down to Puerto Rico and do a special episode called Operation Puerto Rico after the hurricane down there. I rebuilt a community center, their basketball court, their baseball field, and a bar in the town of Luisa in Puerto Rico. And that was just incredibly powerful to me personally. But I got to do a hurricane rescue on Long Island in Far Rockaway. I got to do a hurricane rescue in New Orleans in

Those seem to me the most to be. Now, there's the outrageous ones of we found a prophylactic behind the bar once, pretty darn outrageous, used, of course. But the ones that feel the best are when you really can rescue a family and really impact people long term. That's really powerful when you do it. When did the sports bar sort of come into existence specifically?

You know, it's funny. I was talking about that with a friend of mine from Detroit the other day. I believe, and people can argue with me, but many people agree with me, the first sports bar ever in America was in Detroit, Michigan, and it was called Lindell's AC. And AC stood for Athletic Club.

And you went in there and they had Joey Lewis boxing gloves on the wall and they had all that. And it was even pre-TV. But they talked sports and the decor was sports. But...

I think, you know, as the NFL packages, I think helped a lot, Rob, in launching that whole sports bar. You didn't watch the game at home anymore. You went to a bar to watch it. You know, I think it launched big time in the late 80s, early 90s. That's what it feels like. Interestingly, a sports bar will only, if you owned a sports bar, sports are only going to fill it about 80 days a year. And that's where bar operators blow it. So you still have to have a glass.

great bar for the other 280 days a year. Okay. This sounds like a stupid question. What makes a great bar? You know, a great bar. And when I say this, you'll know what I mean. And I'll define it in a moment. You feel it in your gut. You know, the pace is right.

right, the music feels right, the environment has an energy and a subliminal feel, if you will, that makes it work. Because a beer is a beer and a scotch and soda is a scotch and soda. Special Signature Cocktails aside, I own the first patent ever issued by the federal government for music management.

in hospitality properties and created a database of 60,000 songs at beats per minute and keys and male versus female vocalists and smooth versus rough. And I got to hit you musically. So you'll like this, Rob. I don't believe I'm in a food and beverage business. I believe I'm in a reaction business. And I believe so are you.

You're not doing a podcast now, you're doing a reaction. The podcast isn't the product. The reaction to the podcast is the product. The podcast is the vehicle. And I believe- Yes, I agree. Yeah. And movie making is the same. You're making reactions. You're achieving it through the movie. So the movie is the vehicle to me. The product is the reaction. I say that to a cook. He's creating a reaction in the kitchen, not an entree, right? Or we don't play music. We play reactions. We achieve it through music. We don't serve people. We create reactions. We achieve it through service. So-

I think he or she in a restaurant business and probably in your business too, who creates the greatest reactions wins. That makes perfect sense. One of my greatest reactions in the history of my movie life is when your shirt ripped off in Tommy boy. What are the greatest reactions I ever had watching a movie just to be funny for a moment. I can't believe you remember that. I still smile when I think of it. I remember doing it like it was yesterday and,

Because it was one of those moments where I knew that was a great moment because it was just a funny idea. And the way the special effect worked, it was a it was like a new mat. Those old school pneumatic tubes that used to put canisters up and down. And all it was was was somebody pulling. I had a breakaway shirt with somebody pulling just a fishing wire. That was it.

But it had to correspond with what looked like the shirt going up the tube. And it all came together exactly right on that take. And it was just undeniable, which is another thing is when it's right, it's undeniable. So I got to ask a question as a dad. How much fun was it to show that clip to your kids?

Well, you know, they don't really they're like, oh, dad, you know, they're like they're grown, grown ish men now. But they actually Tommy Boy is the one that even they can't deny. Like because Tommy Boy has a weird place in in people's lives that we never thought, by the way, when we made it, we knew we were making a funny movie. But as time has gone on, it's become more.

one of those movies. It's got a life of its own. For sure. And I mean, but like, you know, they've never watched the West Wing. They've never, you know, they, um, in fact, my, my young son, who is a writer, producer, um, just sold a show to Netflix. So he's really in it. And he's like, dad, you don't understand the West Wing has no relevance today in today's culture. It has none. I'm like, okay, just be quiet. I know you went to Stanford. You think you're smart. Yeah.

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You say that you fell in love with your wife at first sight at the Super Bowl? I did. Back when I was on the board of the NFL, I would go to Super Bowls. And she was sitting a row behind me.

And she dropped something and we started talking. And earlier that weekend, I had gone to the NFL properties party and NFL Super Bowl weekend. The players group has a party, the players association, the owners association, there are all these parties and events going on. And before the game, I had bumped into her at one of those events. We happened to be talking and then she was sitting behind me in a game. And one thing led to another. And 25 years later, we're still together.

Isn't that amazing, the fate of it? Yeah, it is. You meet her, you go, oh, great, interesting woman, whatever. And then the next day she's right behind. It's a stadium of 60,000 people, 100,000 people. She could be anywhere. She's right behind you. And I'm not sure I believe meant to be, but God, it's hard not to think that when you hear stories like that. And when you think of our backgrounds, we're very different backgrounds. So you would never have thought we would have gotten together or had a reason to get together.

But that fluke instance caused it. Do you enjoy having her on the show when she gets to appear? I do. You know, the first two years she did all recon with me and it was great, but now she got recognized. So I tried a wig and tried makeup and I can't send her in to do secret recon anymore. She gets busted. But the fun part is if I, if I see that a bar is really egregious, I'll send her in as John Taffer's wife. And you'll see it this season. She orders one of everything on the menu.

And she sits at a table and they bring everything out. And then I come out and sit next to her. And then, uh, those are fun. What, why do, um, successful franchises have like a glory era and then they're gone? Um, like, I mean, when I tell my kids, um,

Like I said, who are, you know, out there, single guys moving and shaking in LA. And they tell me about all the nightclubs they go to and where they eat, whatever. And I'm like, you know, when I was a kid, this place was cool, that place was cool. And weirdly enough, there are the things that still work. You'll be happy to know Barney's Beanery. Yeah.

They they go and they act like they discovered it, by the way. They act like, yeah, Barney's Beanery, man. It's really coming. Come on. You tell me a fucking Barney's Beanery. But then I'll be like, but then we would also go to the Hard Rock Cafe. The fact that the Hard Rock Cafe in I'm going to say, let's say 1983. I know it's a long time ago, but like it was the height of the coolest. I mean, the coolest of the and it's.

The notion that in L.A., the Hard Rock Cafe was cool, but it was. So how does how do those things happen? How is it that that Planet Hollywood, obviously direct ripoff, would ever have been cool? How is it that, you know, what happened to Fuddruckers? What happened? How do things happen?

What's the lifestyle like? What goes wrong? You could say that even your brand is challenged in those ways. My brand is challenged in those ways. How do we maintain relevancy, Rob? How do we create an environment where when your son goes into this restaurant, he still feels relevant. He still feels cool. He still feels he's in a meaningful place versus an uncool place.

At the end of the day, that has to be what happens. So look at Hard Rock, for example. Hard Rock started with a food premise. They had the best hamburger in London and Jimi Hendrix hung a guitar on their wall. And then Hard Rock took off as a concept. But it started with the world's greatest hamburger. Planet Hollywood was the opposite. Robert Earl created a celebrity concept and the food was a secondary thought. I see the smile on your face. And the food wasn't really great.

So I was involved in Rainforest Cafe, a nice, beautiful environment. And the food was certainly better than Planet Hollywood. And Rainforest Cafe continues to have some relevancy in the marketplace. But it's decor packages. It's music, like we talked about earlier. It's keeping a menu relevant and keeping a brand relevant. A lot of the chains, like Applebee's, and I don't want to beat on anybody specifically, they're fighting for that relevancy today. Subway.

There have been a lot of articles. I'm not saying anything anybody doesn't know. Subway is now in big trouble because they've lost relevancy to a lot of the other sandwich shops, but they did this $5 foot-long thing.

And the franchisees aren't making money on the $5 footlong, but they still pay 7% or 6% to Subway every time they sell it. So the corporation's making money, but the franchisee is not. So now there's all sorts of legal disputes. And it's all an argument. And if they weren't fighting relevancy, none of this would be happening. They wouldn't be discounting. They wouldn't be doing any of these things. Hard rock maintains a hipness because music is always hip.

some of it is always hip. So they can change memorabilia packages. They can change their music program. They can turn it up. They can make it cool today for your son based upon understanding his demographic. And I think it's easier for that music-based concept to stay fresh when it is for, let's say, a Friday's to stay fresh. What do you think? Don't you think you feel that when it's right and it's more of a subliminal feeling than a physical thing?

I feel like what haven't, well, I guess it's sort of implicit in what you're saying is, is change. It has to change. It has to be reinvented just because it's working doesn't mean it's going to work forever. And the question is, how do you re it's almost like if you don't reinvent before the warning signs that you need to, you're already too late. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And once the revenues drop about 30%, there's no return anymore. Yeah.

You know, it becomes very, very difficult. Then you don't have to reinvent. Then you got to close down and remodel and rebrand the whole darn thing, which becomes very expensive. So the trick is, it's almost like that old oil filter commercial, pay me now or pay me later. That's right. Remember that? Because if I don't invest in it now, if I don't keep myself relevant every year now, come five or six years, I'm going to have a big hit.

because I've lost my customer base. And you run into people who go, it's working now. I don't want to do that outlay of money or let's not mess with something that isn't broken. And you see it even in the creative industry where people have the inclination and the foresight and the vision to want to reinvent themselves and do something new, have their advisors who, and I've faced it with, when I first started writing books,

People told me that people right in the prime, in the middle of their careers, shouldn't write memoirs because it's a signal that you're done. And I didn't buy it. I just didn't buy that concept. I thought to the contrary, it's like,

I want to read about people who are in the middle of it. And there's always more chapters to be written. Yes. And I was proved writer at two bestsellers. But you can see how if you don't have the confidence in your vision, you just bail on it. You bail on the idea. I'm all about authenticity. You are too, Robin. Just knowing your life and how you've lived your life. You're not scared to say what you believe, what you feel. You hold your ground. You're an authentic guy. So am I.

My show is just like me in real time. There's nothing fake. It's all exactly real. And authenticity has been so important to my career. Have you seen the new Elvis movie? I'm just going to come right out and tell you I love it. I love it too. You know what really got me in that movie, and I didn't know this, is when he went to do the special and I wanted him to wear the Christmas sweaters. Yeah.

Amazing. And somebody said to him, no, you got to be authentic. You got to be Elvis when you go out there, not some nerd in a Christmas sweater. And he went out in a black belt. I never knew any of that. And, you know, I think it was a great example of authenticity. Had he not gone out as himself, I'm not certain that comeback would have happened. That's what's so emotional about that movie. And in any of those movies, when somebody follows their inner voice against all odds...

And I think the against all odds part is what makes – that's the conflict that makes the story worth telling. I mean there's money on the line. Remember the sponsors were all there? Oh, yeah. I think it was Singer or somebody was really angry. Yeah, Singer Sewing Machines. Right, right.

So nuts. But don't we both have moments in our lives when people around us said, no, no, no, you're crazy, no, no, no, you're crazy, but you forged on and it turned out you weren't so crazy? Happens all the time. Happens in big moments and in countless smaller moments. You know, I just finished...

And this series hasn't come out yet, but it's for Netflix and it's co-created by my son and I and our partner, Victor Fresco. And, you know, and you deal with the Netflix people who I love working with, incidentally. And, you know, everybody has a point of view and there's one character.

that they were super scared of. That was my favorite character. And I won't go into the reasons that they were scared of the character, but they were scared of the character. They wanted to change this about him, that about him, wanted to change everything. We stood our ground. The research comes back. It's everybody's favorite character in the show, even over me. You got to go for it. You got to go for it, especially in your business, buddy. If you don't go for it, then, but that's what makes you great is because it doesn't have to be you.

Right. You buy into the old total creativity and you'll work just as well behind some, but side somebody as in front. 100%. I mean, when I give, give notes on, on, on cuts or, you know, of, of episodes or movies and stuff, it's, it's never about really rarely is it about me? It's about making everybody as good as I can make them. Cause you know, it's the rising tide floats all boats, you know, notion serving the story, um, the nightclub hall of fame.

You're one of the first six inductees that I just had this funny notion. I was kind of just waxing on about what the nightclub hall of who would I put in the night? I know some people who should be in the nightclub hall of fame because they went to a lot of them. I mean, I, I, I, I had an era where I should, I think I should be in the nightclub hall of fame for the eighties. I mean, so you should be given a golden barstool award. Yes. Yeah.

That's the other thing about nightclubs. Here's my thing about nightclubs. And this is kind of like, I guess, like an old person talking about anything that the kids are going to roll their eyes. I think they suck. And here's why. I think something ruined nightclubs. And I have a very specific thing that I think ruined it. You ready for what it is? Yep. Bottle service. It's great for the people that own nightclubs.

But when I came up, when you went to a nightclub, you didn't have to pay X amount of money, quote unquote, for a table. Now, there was still, as you say, this social anthropological kabuki you had to go through to get it, which made you feel special, which made it interesting. But it wasn't but it wasn't money. So what you had to have was you had to be interesting, interesting.

or cool, or whatever. So you could, on any given time, you could go there, and there could be somebody who didn't have a pot to piss in next to you, but they were an up-and-coming artist that everybody thought was the shit. Or you would be some hot young model that everybody wanted to screw. Or it was a politician that everybody wanted to grease. Or whatever the hell it was,

Today, you walk into any of those clubs and it's young kids on the make and rich people paying for it. And that's it. Well, I think that's a good picture of a Las Vegas nightclub. I'm not certain that's the way a nightclub in downtown Detroit looks. Right? So I think they're different, you know, when you go around the country. I'll tell you something that's fascinating. The amount of nightclubs in the world has gone down drastically in the past eight years.

Has it? Yeah, cities like London and Munich and cities around the world that have had a great many nightclubs or dance clubs, as we would call them. Really, there are many, many less of them. And now they're becoming more loungy and interactive type of environments. It's funny, I'm rescuing. I'm in Charlotte right now in the middle of production. And I'm rescuing a nightclub this week. I go there tonight, never been there. I have no idea what I'm walking into. But we don't get to rescue that many nightclubs because there aren't that many out there. It's a challenge. It's a challenge.

You know, also something has happened musically. And when I was younger, and I'm a little older than you are, Rob, even when you were younger, when you would go to nightclubs when you were in your young 20s, music would create different customer mixes. I could choose to play country. I could choose to play rock and roll. I could choose to play hip hop.

What's happened over the years is hip hop and that whole dance culture and rock and roll has come together. So it's either a country bar or a not country bar from a nightclub standpoint. That's so interesting. And that's really had a huge impact on nightclubs.

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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. What would be in the Hall of Fame of nightclubs? Like, I can look back and go, there was a place called Area in New York in the 80s that was... Well, there are. There have been books and documentaries. There's a place in Dallas called the Stark Club where they used to hand out Ecstasy, which had just been invented at the University of Texas, I believe. Um...

And there, I mean, obviously there's Studio 54, but there are iconic, iconic, iconic dance restaurants, places like that. Do you have like a hall of, is it possible to give me a top five? I mean, they can be restaurants too of iconic things. I mean, they can still be around. They could have long since passed. Sure. You know, the Limelight in Atlanta was a very, very famous nightclub in its day, right? Really, really famous. Pulsations in Philadelphia, which I opened,

had a 27-foot spaceship that deposited a $400,000 alien robot on the dance floor, and that robot was leased for Rocky IV. No way. That was right after the limelight we opened Pulsations. That was a big one. Let me change channels on you completely.

How about Billy Bob's in Texas with a rodeo in the middle? Still a nightclub. Right. So it's a broad term when you start to pick nightclubs. And in all cases, it's a very challenging business.

Who are some of the brands that you advise, that your company advises today? Well, over the years, well, now I'm doing less advising now because we launched our Taffer's Tavern franchise. As I sit and talk with you, I'm developing two new whiskeys. One is already in a market. The other one is we're introducing it. And I have my Taffer's Tavern franchise. We open in D.C. next week and Boston the week after. Wow.

Wow. Congratulations. Thanks. So we're really busy. So I do less projects than I used to. But over the years, I've consulted the companies like Marriott, Rich Carlton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Fridays, Buffalo Wild Wings, Morton's, all those types of companies that almost in all cases you've heard of. Fuddruckers?

As another example, Fuddruckers was originally called Butcher Baker Hamburger Maker. That's a lot of signage. It is a lot of signage. And then the name evolved to be Fuddruckers. I'm fascinated with market research. And I went to the opening of, this is going to date me, of The Win, the big hotel in Vegas. And ended up talking to whoever it was who was running the organization.

at least a branch of the research. And he said the number one, when Steve Wynn was building the perfect casino hotel, this company's input was women want nicer bathrooms. And I'm like, by the way, makes perfect sense. But like what you dig into the data and what you find is, I mean, it makes perfect sense. It's not like a shocker, but yet it is sort of a shocker. It's not,

They want more blackjack tables or they wish pool cabanas would be great. Or I wish the rooms were cheaper. The thread count on the sheet. Do you know what I mean? It just never ceases to fat to end to fascinate me. That kind of stuff. You know what? Take it to the next level. Steve happens to be a friend of mine. Good friend. Yeah. I like Steve. He's great. He's so interesting. I've had the chance to spend a week on his boat with him puffing cigars every night till three in the morning. Amazing. If you say, Steve,

What was the greatest part of the poker room? Say, well, there was a ladies' room no more than 32 feet away. The men's room was 44 feet away. And at no place in that casino was a bathroom more than 180 feet away. And he would spit off all of these types of things, in essence, facilitating what you just said, Rob, right? That these were the things that they knew were so critically important. Years ago, I opened a nightclub in Mall of America, Minneapolis, called Gators. There was a beach-themed club with a lifeguard stand over the dance floor and stuff. The

The men's room was like a freaking outhouse. The ladies room was a palace, Rob.

And it was really, it was really fun when it was closed to bring you into both. Cause it was unbelievable. You wouldn't think they would have been in the same business. That is amazing. Um, I know what I need to tell off, off topic. What do you make of wall burgers? I, my, I love Mar I love that they've had that success, but like, it's so unexpected. Don't you think? Yeah. I think that they've done a great job. Uh, uh, disclosure that he's a friend, but I got to tell you the, the, the burger's a good burger.

And that's really the premise of it. It's not a paper thin burger. It has a little more thickness to it. You know, it's, I mean, it's not a gourmet burger, of course. I'm not suggesting it is, but for a fast food burger, it's a delicious burger. And it's nice to see that their brand translated into that, Rob. Maybe you should get into the lobster roll business. Listen, my, you know, my grandfather, uh,

Ran a hamburger store in Sydney, Ohio, for 65 years and was at one point the president of the Ohio National Restaurant Association. I don't know if NRA is still around that national. And so I grew up in that world.

And it's super fun. I mean, but it's tough. Listen, it's a tough, but I don't need to tell you, restaurants, tough. You know, we have something in common in both of our businesses. When your business works well, you make people smile. When my business works well, I make people smile.

Looking at those smiles is an incredibly rewarding thing. And it's amazing to be in a business that does that every day, every minute. You can look in people's faces and see their pleasure and their engagement. So it's incredibly rewarding for me in that way. It sounds like you and I need to get together and have a cigar and make some plans for further world domination. I'd love to, buddy. Let's do that. Maybe I can twist your arm, get you to do a recount on a bar rescue for me.

Oh my God, that will be, well, you know, my big problem with bar rescues, I don't drink. So I'm a really interesting guy to come in there. I've been like, I'm a, which I love as you say, the best bartender is a guy who doesn't drink. I would be your best bartender ever. Yeah.

Yeah, see, I don't drink. I've never really been much of a drinker. Now, I have to taste things, of course, and know that it's good. But I've never been a drinker. I've always felt that I own the place. Everybody in the room is drunk. I better be sober, right? I'm responsible for everybody. But, you know, your eyes are great because you don't drink. And a lot of people that come to bars socially come with somebody, but they don't drink. So what is the environment like? What is the music like? You know, what is the food like? Would you come back to that place as a non-drinker?

That's a really cool thing. But you haven't mentioned it, but I'm sure it's obvious. Lighting. I'm a big lighting guy. You know, I'll tell you, go to a fine steakhouse. The lights are low and the waiter walks slow. Turn the lights up. The steak isn't worth $80 anymore. If the waiter walks faster, the steak isn't worth $80 anymore. So the slower the pace, the lower the lights, the higher the price.

As the lights go up, the price goes down. As the pace of the server goes up, the price goes down. When you look at those kind of subliminal things, Rob, it's really cool. It's no different than- See, this is the shit I love. That's amazing. It's like the pace of edits in a movie. And as pace, and right, and it accelerates. Same kind of thing. It directly relates to value and to that customer experience and to your perception of-

of value. Pretty cool stuff. Okay. So listeners out there, when you go, the next place you go and the food is unsatisfactory or even if it's been great, but you just feel like it's maybe a little too expensive or you just don't want to pay. Just say, I'm not paying because the lights are too bright. You can't charge me that. I can see too well in here. When you deal with places like it's a, it's a, you know, a cool indie edgy, you know,

Like, and you come in and listen, you have a huge, you're a corporate guy. Look, I don't mean it as a pejorative, but you're a corporate guy. I am. I'm wearing a sport jacket when I walk in. You're wearing a sport jacket. They're all dressed punk. How do you deal with a young entrepreneur who, you know, thinks he's invented the world? You know, it's funny. I ran the Troubadour many years ago.

Oh my God, I forgot to ask you about that. That must be, well, that's part, we'll do that part two. That must've been amazing. And when I ran to Troubadour, Doug was still alive and to Troubadour was then a great place. But when I ran to Troubadour, Black Flag was there, Adamant was there, Fear was there. You know, all these bands were there. The Dead Kennedys were there. I remember the Cadillac. I remember the Cadillac with Dead Kennedys on the side. So-

These kids don't have anything on me, and I just have to prove that to them, that it's not new. I get this business, whether it's a punk club or a classic rock club or a cutting-edge alternative music club or whatever the heck it is. I get these things. But sometimes you really just have to shatter their own confidence because their confidence is false, Rob. And one of the biggest challenges I have in Bar Rescue is I go at you big time because I've got to make you doubt yourself. Until you doubt yourself, I can't change you.

But once I get you to doubt yourself, well, you did this and you did that. But, oh, once that brain opens a crack, I can walk right the hell in. But those experiences of the Troubadour and Barneys, and I was a drummer myself back in those days playing in the Troubadour and such. So I've been around the block, buddy. Man, the dead. I mean, listen, anybody who had any proximity to the dead Kennedys and Barneys,

Adam Ant. Oh, my God. And Fear and Black Flag and Black Flag and all those guys. I still I have a box in the troubadour that has all the stickers from those bands and that they used to give away stickers. And I have all that stuff stashed away somewhere. This is exactly what you're saying about how now that music is so commingled in the old days that if you like that music, you like that music.

And you weren't going to anywhere else. That's right. And that doesn't exist today to that level. So interesting. My favorite takeaway from the conversation I just had is that we're all in the reaction business. Makes perfect sense. That's a good slogan. If I get a good slogan a week, I'm a happy guy because I remember them and they mean something to me. And that one is going to be a hard one to beat. Well, thanks again to John for coming on.

And thank you guys for listening. What's that? Oh, it's the lowdown line. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi, Rob. This is Andy from Denver, Colorado. And the question I have is...

I also love Yacht Rock, as you do. Maybe you can have some more performers on your show or at the least tell us a few of your favorite songs. I would have to go with Robbie Dupree singing Sail Away. Robbie Dupree is definitely on the list.

I think my number one all-time yacht rock song is What a Fool Believes. But you know what? Probably anything with Michael McDonald in it is going to be great. I like Into the Night, the Benny Mendonays, whatever the hell song it is. And if you've not seen the video for All Things Holy, do it immediately. You cannot believe the video for that song.

It's called Into the Night, right? Yeah, it's called Into the Night. Wow. But look, Yacht Rock is my jam and I don't care. Come for me. It's the best. Always good to meet a fellow yachtie. Thanks for calling in. And don't forget to download the rest of the series here that we got here for everybody. You know, don't do it as a one-off. Come on. Because my purpose is for you to download the entirety of Literally. Please do that. And I will see you next week for more fun.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Rob Schulte, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. Our research is done by Alyssa Grahl. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Joanna Salataroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. All of the music you hear is by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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