810: Amy Mills Owner of 17th Street BBQ, The Warehouse, and OnCue Consulting

With Excitement allow me to introduce to you today's guest, Owner of two 17st BBQ locations, The Warehouse event Center, OnCue Consulting and Co-author of Peace, Love and Barbecue and Praise the Lard, Amy Mills. Barbecue heiress Amy Mills, daughter of barbecue legend Mike Mills, is considered the industry’s go-to girl for all things barbecue. She is the James Beard Award-nominated author of Peace, Love and Barbecue, a television personality, and a branding, marketing and PR pro. Her company, OnCue Consulting, offers premiere barbecue industry education and she consults with restaurants and barbecuers world-wide. Amy divides her time between Boston, Southern Illinois and barbecue destinations across the country. She always wanted to be a glamorous heiress. Little did she dream her fortune would lie in barbecue.

Check out Start With Why by Simon Sinek as mentioned in today's episode!

 

Check out Shopify and Goldbelly as mentioned in today's episode.

Show notes…

Calls to ACTION!!!

• Join Restaurant Unstoppable Network and connect with my past guest and a community of superfans.
• Subscribe to the Restaurant Unstoppable YouTube Channel
• Join the private Unstoppable Facebook Group
• Join the email list! (Scroll Down to get the Vendor List!)

Favorite success quote or mantra:

• "Generosity is a recipe for success."

In today's episode with Amy Mills we will discuss:

• BBQ in Missouri
• BBQ competitions
• Food competitions in your town will boost the entire community's economy
• Good marketing
• Hiring best practice
• Advice on writing and publishing a book
• Retail and merchandise
• Multiple channels of revenue
• Visual branding

Today's sponsor:

Restaurant365 is a cloud-based, all-in-one, restaurant-specific accounting and back-office platform that seamlessly integrates with POS systems, payroll providers, food and beverage vendors. It generates accurate real-time reporting and analysis in user-friendly dashboards, facilitating immediate, data-driven decision making. Restaurant365 eliminates manual, error-prone processes and is designed to help restaurant businesses grow with functionality that helps optimize labor costs, reduce food costs and increase revenue.

Ecolab: Streamline your clean with Ecolab’s new EPA-registered 2-in-1 solution, Sink & Surface Cleaner Sanitizer. It will help reduce risk, simplify your procedures and help ensure compliance. This solution cleans and sanitizes hard non-porous surfaces with a single product, eliminates the rinse step and equips your staff to clean more efficiently. Clean simplified, confidence delivered.

Ovation: Recently voted the #1 guest feedback platform in a nationwide RestaurantOwner.com survey, Ovation uses a SMS-based survey as a “digital table touch” that has redefined guest feedback.  Through frictionless integrations with online ordering platforms and other tools, Ovation allows you to easily collect guest feedback, resolve concerns in real-time, get more 5-star reviews, and uncover insights to improve brand-wide.  As a listener of Restaurant Unstoppable, you’ll receive 2,000 FREE text messages - contact our team!

Knowledge bombs

1. Which "it factor" habit, trait, or characteristic you believe most contributes to your success?
   • Cheerfully flexible
2. What is your biggest weakness?
   • Holding grudges
3. What's one question you ask or thing you look for during an interview?
   • The servant heart; the giver, not the taker.. How will you recover when dealing with a difficult guest
4. What's a current challenge? How are you dealing with it?
   • Recovering from the pandemic, findingnstaif and keeping team members happy through staff shortages
5. Share one code of conduct or behavior you teach your team.
   • All for the team
6. What is one uncommon standard of service you teach your staff?
   • The greeting and the goodbye. Make people feel seen and thanked.
7. What's one book we must read to become a better person or restaurant owner?
   • This Is Marketing by Seth Godin
   • Atomic Habits by James Clear
     GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE AT AUDIBLE.COM 
8. What's one thing you feel restaurateurs don't know well enough or do often enough?
   • Pay attention to food cost
9. Name one service you've hired.
   • Robin Insley - Communication and Branding
   • Meridith Paulhus - Graphic Design and Food Styling
   • Arthur Agency in Carbondale, Illinois - Graphic Design
10. What's one piece of technology you've adopted within your restaurant walls and how has it influence operations?
    • Toast
    • 7Shifts
11. If you got the news that you'd be leaving this world tomorrow and all memories of you, your work, and your restaurants would be lost with your departure with the exception of 3 pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity, what would they be?
    • BBQ is a culture not a concept
    • Shine a light on your region
    • Create a legacy and loyalty in a community

Contact info:

Instagram: 17thstreetbbq

Email: [e-mail]

Website: 17bbq.com

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for joining today! Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

Huge thanks to Amy Mills for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!

 

Restaurant Unstoppable is a free podcast. One of the ways I'm able to make it free is by earning a commission when sharing certain products with you. I've made it a core value to only share tools, resources, and services my guest mentors have recommend, first. If you're finding value in my podcast, please use my links!