In this solo episode I’m live in Portland chatting one-to-one with Chris Schultz, CEO of Voodoo Doughnut, fresh off the main stage at the RC Show. With more than three decades of restaurant industry experience with beloved brands built on a strong culture such MOD Pizza and Starbucks Coffee Company, Chris’s passion about the people, and providing opportunities for them to develop and grow professionally rings true in our interview. We talk about the tricky business of growing a business and at the same time keeping the unique culture in place that makes them great.
Welcome to a special Restaurants Canada bonus episode of The Food Professor podcast!
The Food Professor is presented by omNovos the digital customer engagement solution for grocery and restaurant marketers, helping you solve your customer’s most daunting questions: what should I eat today? Find out how you can get personal and grow sales with omNovos at www.realcustomerengagement.com
In this episode I’m live in Portland chatting one-to-one with Chris Schultz, CEO of Voodoo Doughnuts, fresh off the main stage at the RC Show. With more than three decades of restaurant industry experience with beloved brands built on a strong culture, we talk about the tricky business of growing a business and at the same time keeping the unique culture in place that makes them great.
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Thanks again to the folks at omNovos for being our presenting sponsor!
If you liked what you heard you can subscribe on Apple iTunes , Spotify or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the grocery, foodservice, or restaurant industry. I’m Michael LeBlanc, producer and host of The Voice of Retail podcast and a bunch of other stuff, and I’ll be back with my podcast partner Sylvain Charlebois next week!
Have a safe week everyone!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to a special Restaurants Canada bonus episode of The Food Professor podcast. The Food Professor is presented by omNovos, the digital customer engagement solution for Grocery and Restaurant Marketers. How can you solve your customers most daunting question, what should I eat today? Find out how you can get personal and grow sales with omNovos at www.realcustomerengagement.com. In this solo episode , I'm live in Portland, chatting one to one with Chris Schultz, CEO of Voodoo Doughnut, fresh off the main stage at the RC Show. With more than three decades of restaurant industry experience with beloved brands built on a strong culture, such as MOD pizza and Starbucks Coffee Company, Chris's passion about the people, providing opportunities for them to develop and grow professionally, rings true in our interview. We talked about the tricky business of growing an organization and at the same time keeping the unique culture in place, that makes them great. Let's have a listen. Chris, welcome to The Food Professor podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Chris Schultz
Oh, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. And thank you for the invitation to join you. It's I'm excited.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, whereabouts in the world are you today?
Chris Schultz
So I'm actually in Portland, Oregon today, which is, which is where we call home right now. And in sunny Portland. Which is even more of an oddity. Today, it's not raining it's sunny. It's about 50 degrees. And, you know, we can kind of do weather checks when you're in Portland, right?
Michael LeBlanc
I've heard it from locals in Portland that you can tell a tourist because they're carrying an umbrella, is that any truth to that?
Chris Schultz
That is spot on. I moved to the northwest about 15 years ago with Starbucks, maybe longer than that now. And you know, of course, the first thing we did, went out and bought rain jackets and, and umbrellas. And people were like, number one, you're not wearing North Face. So you're not a local. You're wearing a rain jacket that you've bought from (inaudible) or somewhere. And you're carrying the umbrella, right. So you always know people Northwest, they have North Face jackets and no umbrellas.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right on. Well, you're fresh, so to speak off the virtual stage of the Restaurants Canada Show, so it's a it's amazing to have the opportunity to, to catch up and delve into this whole Voodoo Doughnut, and you, and how you run it. And how you think of the brand. And all that great stuff. So why don't we jump in? Tell us about yourself your personal, professional journey and your role at Voodoo Doughnut.
Chris Schultz
Yeah, be my pleasure. So, I, I've been in the restaurant business, I'm gonna date myself here, 41 years. I've never had another job excluding working in restaurants for 41 years. It's all I've ever done. I don't, I don't know another job. I never folded t-shirts. I never did any of that, pump gas. I never did any of that, but work in restaurants my entire life. And through that career, I didn't go to college. I chose the restaurant business. It really wasn't an option when I was a kid, that college was an option, not only from a financial perspective. But in all due respect. I wasn't a very good student. So, I've been in the restaurant business my entire life and really had a very long journey. (inaudible) in the last 25 years of my career, I've been very blessed and working with some really great organization. I spent about 14 years in the Starbucks world. You know, the early 90s when they were growing. I think at one point in time, I started it was like 250 stores. I think I left at 17,000.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow.
Chris Schultz
At one point time, I think we're opening three stores a day. And had a great journey worked internationally, worked domestically. So really had a great journey with them. And I was really blessed when I left Starbucks. And it was during 2008 when you know obviously times were tough. And Starbucks was downsizing. And I joined a company called MOD Pizza, M O D pizza out of, out of Bellevue, Washington. Which was a group of former Starbucks executives, that founded fast casual pizza. And, you know, I think I spoke during during the presentation. I think there's one in Canada right now. But they were really, really grew very strongly here in the US. Over the years that I was there. We were the fastest growing restaurant company for three straight years. I started with one store in 2008. I left them and it was 350 stores, I think is what I left, including 10 in the UK. And that was that was an interesting there was an interesting instinct journey, right? And then you know, at the end of about eight and a half years with them, was thinking what was my next journey? Was kind of tired, to be honest with you. And what was my next journey? And a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine said "Hey, there's a there's a company called Voodoo Doughnut down in Portland. They're looking for a CEO. They just got some financial backing. Would you be interested in going and doing that?" And, I of course knew Voodoo. Voodoo is an iconic brand and especially up in the northwest and being out of Portland. And I said two things, I'm not writing a resume because I haven't written a resume in 25 years, and I'm not moving to Portland. And long story short, I have a house in Portland now.
Michael LeBlanc
A resume up on LinkedIn.
Chris Schultz
A resume up on LinkedIn and yeah. I joined, I joined Voodoo as the CEO coming on three, a little above three, over three years ago. Very iconic brand. At that point in time, we had five, five company owned restaurants, two license agreements. And it had been a brand that had been in place for about 10, 15 years. Two crazy founders, you know, they really built it on an essence of being all culture back in the day when all culture wasn't a term we were using. And hence, I've learned that term is very popular now. And though not only the way that, that we made doughnuts and what we presented, but in the folks we hired, in the environment of the stores and the branding. And over that 15 years, they didn't, they did a really good job, the founders did a really good job. But they recognize their core competency wasn't growing your restaurant business, right. They were marketers. And they recognized that and I think at the right time. So they got some financial backing, and I joined and, and we've grown since then. We're growing the brand. We're kind of reintroducing the brand. Reinvigorating the brand. But staying true to our core, which is, you know, again, old culture, crazy doughnuts, great environment, and taking good care of our folks. So we've, we've now opened four in the last three years. We're about to open our fifth, our fifth store in a couple of weeks. Or we've opened three and we're opening our fourth, something like that I lose track of numbers. In a couple of weeks in Houston, Texas. We've started training yesterday. We brought on 55 brand new employees, which is the most exciting thing of what we do is hire new folks put them to work.
Michael LeBlanc
RIght, so integral to the concept, right? I mean, by the sounds of it, it's, it, that hire is always important, in any business, particularly customer facing, but for for business like yours. I mean, it's important in Starbucks, right? You got to get somebody with the right attitude, but it's also It feels like it's got topspin importance for something like your concept. Yeah?
Chris Schultz
Yeah, an interesting way of putting it and yeah, it absolutely is, you know, choosing the right folks and treating them well and giving them great work environment. You know, having only done this my entire career. I recognized you know, when I was growing up as a kid, in different restaurants and groups I worked in, the importance of having a great leadership, right. What the company stood for, where it was, and, you know. Someone asked me the other day, you know, (inaudible) you're a first time CEO, what does that look like? And I said, "Listen, when I was 16, I was a CEO of the dish pit. I've been a CEO my entire life".
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right on.
Chris Schultz
Just focus in different areas. It's just that I just have a broader net. Back then I was ensuring the pans were clean. But I was a CEO back then, and don't get in that dish pit, that was mine. And so you know, it's just, it's just a bigger, more responsibility. But, but yeah, it's, it's a we, we love what we do, right? I mean, think about it, I make a living selling doughnuts.
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Chris Schultz
I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot worse jobs I've had, and you know, people are struggling. And, you know, I always laugh, you know, I imagine now if I could ever called, could call my mom, she's passed now, several years on, and share with her, "Yeah mom, I make a living and we live based on selling a lot of doughnuts". I think she would laugh at me. I think she would be like, Are you sure Chris? Are you sure you want to do that?
Michael LeBlanc
Well, let's unpack a little bit about the culture a little bit more. So you've touched on it a couple times, you know, the this origin story. It's you know, 15 years, slow growth, get it right, now we're gonna (inaudble). We think we got we got something here. And, and tell me a little bit more of the culture. What, so let's start with, Who do you look for when you hire? What do you, what do you?
Chris Schultz
Yeah, so I learned something several years back by a person I worked with for a long time. When we were growing the pizza concept. The very first question she would ask every single person is, "What are you passionate about?" And, if they you know, they talk about well I love going to work? And she'd stopped him and say, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not talking about that. Tell me if you could wake up tomorrow, do anything. What would you do?" If they lit up and he talked about comic books or Star Wars or rock climbing, it didn't matter what it was. But if they lit up, and they could talk about that passionately, she was like, we're hiring that person. They've got a passion. They know a passion feels like. I can teach everyone to make a doughnut. I can't teach passion.
Michael LeBlanc
It's really the the X Factor of hiring, right. Is finding that, in some ways, I don't want to boil it down to finding the right questions, but it kind of is indicative. I have a friend, I interviewed Dan Pink, on, and he's a best selling author, and I asked him the same question, basically, is what, what's a great question to ask employers or prospective employees? Particularly over zoom, you know, it's hard to get a sense of people, right? And he said, "Ask him if they think they're, they're lucky" And yes, he said, he said, listen, you'll get two types of answers. You'll get "Ah, you know, I never win the lottery. I never win anything". And then the other people say, "Listen, I was born and born in North America". And, you know, they go on about the things that they're really lucky about.
Chris Schultz
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
You know.
Chris Schultz
That's a great one. That's a really great, I just wrote that down. That's a really great one. But yeah, so, so passion first, right? Are you, can you speak passionately, are you passionate about something in your life? And then we take it from there and we you know, we look for folks that have that little bit of spark inside of them. And want, and want to work in an environment, you know, Voodoo is a very different environment. So, we don't have a dress code. So you can wear literally anything to work you'd like to wear to work, with some boundaries. You know,
Michael LeBlanc
No suit, no suits and ties.
Chris Schultz
No suit and tie on one end, and no, no, no bathing suits on the other end, right. So, I think that's the curves.
Michael LeBlanc
No onesies, no onesies.
Chris Schultz
I worked for a guy long term, who used to call it wide boulevard, high curbs. And we have wide boulevard and high curbs when it comes our dress code. You know, we don't program the music in the store. The way we do the stores is everyone gets a turn at their, at their own music playing. So you come in, you write your name down on a list. You get to play your music for an hour. And then the next person plays their music. So you walk into stores, and you get a variety of different music, right, that you've probably never heard in a doughnut shop in your life. And then, the other part is being part of a team, right? We're, we are very high volume doughnut shops. And for those that don't know Voodoo, you know, our average unit volumes, a little over three and a half million dollars. $3 and a half million a year in doughnuts. So incredibly busy doughnut shops, most of our shops are, the majority of them are. And so you know, working in that environment, you got to be able to come to work and you're gonna work for eight hours, right. There's not this downtime, sense of okay, now I got time to myself or. So being part of a team and being part of a community is important to us. And, and, you know, lone wolves don't tend to work out. You know, I never, I never used that term before. But as I think through it, you know, those folks that don't like to be part of a team, don't like to be part of a family. It's hard. It's difficult, because our stores are historically, not super big, right. And so you're constantly in someone's way. We do that, you know, we most of our stores run with between, you know, 35 to 80 people on staff.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow.
Chris Schultz
You know, given the store and given the volume. And so,
Michael LeBlanc
Given the intensity of the day, right? I mean, it's,
Chris Schultz
Exactly, you know, that's a small city, you know. And so, it's really important that people get along, and they have ability to, to vent and talk about their world and talk about their lives. We're really, it's really important to me, that we connect, right. Because people are humans first, and then they work for you second. And so ensuring that people feel like they're, they're a part of something that really respects them. And, and then ask them for the same from them, right? Just respect the company, as much of the company respects you.
Michael LeBlanc
When, I just went to delve into one idea around product development and innovation. How, how and where does that spring from? Does it go back to the founders? Or does it, do you unleash it back to the employees? Where where does that come from?
Chris Schultz
Yeah, it was started, so it started with the founders, right. So we were the inventors of the Bacon Maple Bar. You know, they these guys were two crazy, one was a bar promoter and was, one was a, sorry, a band promoter. And one was a bartender, right. And so you can just imagine what those kind of minds came up with back in the late, late 80s, right? What did they come up with, and so, you know, the Bacon Maple Bar really was an invention of, they brought bacon to work one morning, because they were hungry for breakfast, and they throw it on top of a maple bar, like hey, that works. And true story, Anthony Bourdain came in, in the early days, he happened to be in Portland doing his his world traveling show. And they said to him, you need to go to this doughnut shop in downtown Portland. It wasn't on his agenda (inaudible), unless stopped there he's time off between cities and came in and got a Bacon Maple Bar. And as the story goes, and as the as the recording went, they showed him at night sleeping in his bed dreaming of this Bacon Maple Bar, right?
Michael LeBlanc
It's like It's like that commer, it's like that commercial for Hershey's Cups, right? Two people, two different things, turn a corner run into each other practically.
Chris Schultz
Yeah, and so literally, you know, he, through his one show, right, we kind of blew up in downtown Portland. And, when you talk about innovation, you know, we have a wide range of doughnuts. In our, in our, in our arsenal. Now, I think we have 41 different skus we sell every single day. And now it really comes down to a lot of our team members suggesting, recommending what's happening. We actually have what we call a doughnut lab. Believe it or not, we're, you know, every month we get together, a group gets together and kind of thinks about what we're going to do next. I mean, not to not to tip our hand, we're doing a job with ramen and sriracha and sriracha, sriracha on top of a ramen bowl, right. And I don't know what we're gonna roll it out around 420 we'll see what happens. You know,
Michael LeBlanc
Okay, that stacking the deck a little bit, that stacking the deck a little bit.
Chris Schultz
I know, it is, it is. You know, we're doing it we're doing a doughnut in the form of a peep, you know, the Easter Peeps called, Behind and go Peep. So we just continue to push the needle and especially during COVID was one of the things that really we pivoted very early on, and I'm sure we'll get to a little bit more, but innovation I think was a key to that. I looked up at one point I realized that there's a percentage of folks that come to Voodoo, not because they're hungry. Take a minute to think about that, right. We own a restaurant shop and we have customers that come to us because they're not really hungry. Right comes because of innovation, because they can only get a certain doughnut in our shop. And there's a part of coming and the excitement and the experience. When things were going great, we were rolling a new donut every three or four months, right. Because things were going great, we're just killing it. And then COVID hit, right. And, and part of my thought was, let's go back to the core that makes us, what's gonna bring people back to our stores? And part of that was done innovation. And so we've really reengaged and now we introduce a new doughnut every month, that has a month long shelf life. To give us something to talk about with our customers. To give us something to talk about in the stores with our teams, to keep our teams excited and engaged. And we went right back to the core, right. And, and so it's really been an eye opener for us, and quite frankly, a good thing for us to remind us that, you know, innovate or die, especially in this industry. And it was a, it was a great reminder. And so for us innovation is really the key to our growth and our continued growth at our continued ability to connect with our customers.
Michael LeBlanc
But I want to get to this idea of growth, because you know, you've been in a couple of shops that have had the hyper growth, right, you know, the Starbucks being Starbucks being the edge case. But even at MOD Pizza, you know, big growth. You're talking much more modest growth here. But clearly there's a growth agenda. How do you, you know, continue this vibe, this this brand and grow it at scale without losing its sense of what makes it unique? And whether it's franchise or company owned, It's probably the same issue. But how are you thinking about that?
Chris Schultz
Yeah, so, so you know, I'll just tell you this, it's a lot harder to grow from 4 and 7, than it is to grow from 20 to 50. Way harder. I mean, you start to become a machine and you have a process of programs. You just start cranking stores out because you know what you're doing, right. But that growth from one to five, or from five to fifteen, holy cow. You know, it's just hard, because you instinctively don't have the infrastructure to do it, right. If you really don't think about it, and you don't want to overspend on infrastructure, right. You want to, you're probably spending on brick and mortar. You're probably focused on that as your primary. You're not really focused on infrastructure. So now you've got to think about, okay, I've gone from four to nine. And I'm doing with the same number of people that I had at four above the store level.
Michael LeBlanc
And you don't have that, that you know, the real estate team to photocopy the concept, right. You don't have that dedicated team at scale brings, right.
Chris Schultz
Exactly, you know, maybe you had a payroll person, because you're cutting more checks. But outside of that, you're just everyone's kind of wearing a multitude of hats. And so, and in probably the team you hired at four stores probably isn't the team and in a lot of instances, that can operate at ten, right? You got to bring in bodies that understand what ten looks like but 50. And, you know, part of this was, and I tell people this story, if someone had told me it would be this hard at Voodoo, I probably wouldn't have done it. I thought to myself, man, I've grown, I've been in really great businesses and, and worked hard. You know, for both Starbucks and MOD. I thought, well, this will be kind of fun, right. Five stores will grow, I don't know, three or four year, it'll be fun. And I look back and like this is hard work, right. You know, I tell the story about, you know, just something as simple as copy paper. When I was at Starbucks, you'd go into a hallway, and there'd be just reams and reams and reams of copypaper, and print things off. Then I went to MOD, and I was like, we're out of printer paper who buys that? That's me. So I have to go buy a copy paper, the printer and the toner and all that. And then we grew at MOD with stores, we had people doing that. And then I came back to Voodoo. And I remember walking in this very small offices of Voodoo, and printing something off and true story, were out of copy paper. And I was like, who buys the copy paper? And everyone kinda looked around and like, whoever needs copy paper buys it. I'm like, oh, right, I'm right back into it again. So it I think with growth, it's excites me, it's kind of who I am. But it's not for the faint of heart, you know, not only the restaurant business. But, but growth, and I think when you do it, you have to do it thoughtfully and strategically. You just don't run into a burning building to look for people, right. You get a plan together. You think about it. You go about strategically. I think that's part of being successful when you grow, is to really think about those things, infrastructure, people who love the stores, the core culture and who are going to be your culture carriers at the store level, because that's important right. To open a new store, I can't be everywhere, you can't be my voice. I have to have folks that are carrying that message and that brand with them. And so you have to be willing to invest a little bit more in some culture carriers at your store, and ensure they're being taken care of because they're the ones are going to go open a new store in Houston, you know, and we're important. You know those are the perks that you have to really rely on because they're there every day. And they're grinding every day. And I think sometimes you, when you're in growth mode, the entrepreneurs forget that, right? They think, "Well listen, this is just easy, they'll just repeat it". And it's a challenge, but I wouldn't say all of that. But I wouldn't I wouldn't change it for the world.I love what I do, right? If I, I love hiring people, I love putting people to work, you know, telling, I think I've told the story. One of my best days is when we promote someone. I'm still a part of that. Well, you know, we just promoted some folks out of Houston, we hae this store, we hired 40 managers for our new store, we've promoted everybody, internal promotes. And I sat down with a young man and said, "Hey, we're going to give you this opportunity as Assistant Manager", and he just started crying.
Michael LeBlanc
Fantastic, fantastic.
Chris Schultz
He said, Can I stop and go call my grandma real quick? I'm like, "Do you want to be paid?" He goes, "That doesn't matter. Like I just have to go call her and tell her, I just got to go to the manager". I was like, holy cow. right? I mean, you know in my head, to me this was just another meeting. Another "Hey, congratulations, here's what you're gonna make", but to this individual this could change his life or her life. And, I think we have to remind yourself that, you know, in business, whether you're in a restaurant or a manufacturing plant, or you know, it's all about that, right.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, let's talk about some other lessons. We've touched on COVID, a little bit. You know, you've talked about the need for, you know, pace and a bit of focus, obviously, during the the COVID era. But what are the kind of, what are you going to take away from all from all this? I mean, we can see the end point, thank goodness, thanks to the miracle vaccine.
Chris Schultz
What they say your lips to God's ears, okay.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, I didn't say the endpoint was soon but at least see the endpoint.
Chris Schultz
Okay. Yeah. I'll take your word for it, sure. I agree.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, as I said to another seminar I was speaking to I said, Imagine having this conversation if there's no vaccine. Kind of the glass half full, or whatever, the needle half full or whatever. But coming out of this, you know, there's probably some opportunities for you guys, it's probably a little real estate that gets shaken, shaken out. And maybe there's a bit opportunity. Maybe there's some people, certainly there's a big reset. And, any thoughts on that kind of the three things you're, you're thinking about?
Chris Schultz
You're, so number one, recognizing the importance of executing to your core, go back to your core, as I've talked about, right. Don't get so full yourself, you forget what got you there. And I think we did, right. Making great doughnuts, delivering a great experience was what got us to being a very successful company. Candidly, I think we forgot about that, right. And in doing just that, right, really focusing on that.The other part that I, really amazed me was the strength of your, our store level leaders, right. Are store level leaders, you know, are now you know, they do health care checks every day in the store. They're taking care of COVID, making sure our employees are safe, our customers, and the strength in which they portrayed through this last year is amazing. I don't know that I would ever have given them this thought that they could do that, right. But that integrity they stepped forward with, and their strength and leadership allows me now to think about doing different things in store level, because the leaders we have. I don't think I'd given them credit for it right? But, but, they're they're operating now stores that aren't just simple doughnut shops, right. They're, they're health care facilities, to check on your employees every day. We do health checks every single day in our stores. Meeting expectations around COVID in the different cities, the requirements have happened. In the last years coming into writing and schedule. And that's, that was an aha moment for me, "Wow" right. That's a really challenging job. We got some really good people doing it.And then the third thing for us, it really was the importance of social media. And the ability to, you know, when you can't touch your folks, touch your customers, and I know, it's weird saying, but when you think connect with your customers directly in your stores, right.How do you continue to move the needle on the brand? It's very easy to walk in the store, the music playing and our doughnuts are there, and our, and our, in our, our marketing is they're in their faces, and we're talking to them. That's really simple, right. You got them now. And so, for us, it's, it's that really important point around whether social media, how does social media play in this world. And then the importance of keeping customers we have, right. I share with our teams all the time, you know, forever, we work really, really hard on getting new customers. And sometimes you forget about the customers that are coming in the door. You can't afford to lose those folks, right? So it's not about just getting new customers, it's about ensuring the customers coming in the door, you're getting, we're putting the same effort and energy, focus on those folks as we are generating new top line revenue getting new folks attracted to us.
Michael LeBlanc
It's a, it's a classic trap. It's a classic trap, right. I used to you know, I used to work for a telecommunications company and that was my, my criticism right? That you didn't make the sweetheart offer to the, to get somebody but the existing, I've been with you 10 years, you know, you're paying, you're just you know, it's tough, right tough to manage both existing and the news, right.
Chris Schultz
It is in, and but I think it's a good reminder. I think COVID was a great reminder that that we have to put as much energy, effort, mindshare into how we do that, you know, how we keep the customer we have and what does that look like? How does it feel? And, I'm not sure I figured it out yet. But but it's, COVID, COVID kind of slapped me across the face and said, "Hey, wait a minute, you know, what's happening in that world?" So, you know, let's, there's a litany of things, a laundry list of things that COVID obviously helped us to understand and will, will help us as we move forward. But I think those three things are primarily for me, as I wake up every day, okay, if the end is at the end, you know, what are we doing differently now that we were doing pre COVID? You know, we're very blessed, we, it's funny, but it was a cash only business, up until January of 2020. So, let me just say that again, cash only business to January of 2020.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Chris Schultz
So, we, and we rolled out credit cards in our stores, and people in the organization said, "That's crazy. We're gonna pay this fee. Why would we want to do that? Cash is great, It's working just fine. Why would we do credit cards?" and this I like to think that I was thinking forward. I was like, no, no that's the way the world works. Well think about two months later, right. Now, we don't have online ordering. We have nothing right. You have to walk into the store with a (inaudible) to buy doughnuts. That's how we did. January 2020 we rolled out credit cards. COVID hits in March, in May, sorry, in April, we were all online ordering in all of our stores. We never even touched it. In July, we were third party delivery in our stores. Now, that's in a that's in a six month period we moved from credit cards to third party delivery. And now in August, we rolled curbside pickup, or carside pickup as we call it.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, its birth, both a testament to these pretty powerful platforms. I mean, when you and I both started our careers trying to stand on something like that would be, you know, almost unachievable if not unachievable, right. I remember when I, when I launched an e-commerce in 2000 was a million dollars to take a credit card online kind of thing.
Chris Schultz
Exactly, right. I mean, and I go back to my comment about the strength in our teams, right. And the (inaudible) you have to do to get these things set up very quickly in the execution of the stories, and oh, by the way, stores, I know you're we're just taking cash now, here comes all these orders through online ordering. So, those are things that really forced us to rethink the business. And quite frankly, now gives us another channel of business that we didn't have. And so,
Michael LeBlanc
Now that's interesting.
Chris Schultz
Now, because of COVID, we've got this whole other channel that didn't exist pre COVID.
Michael LeBlanc
So you think that, that the and, that's a bit of a debate in the, sometimes it's a debate numerically, sometimes philosophically, that, that drive-up, call-in, order online businesses actually truly is incremental versus cannibalizing with a higher net cost.
Chris Schultz
Yeah, no, I, I stumble over my words on this, because from one day to the next, I have two different thoughts, right. I'm talking to and how it's looking and, you know, I listen, I am one that never would have ordered third party delivery, but pre COVID for my personal use. I didn't go through drive thru. Right, just kind of my DNA. Now, with that said, I've been using both. Now will I use it come September, October, as a person? I don't know. I honestly don't know. You know, I like to think that I'm a normal consumer and so I think that's baked out there, which is, you know, come and when you can make it up September, October, November, whenever it is, whenever it comes. And people are vaccinating, ill they continue to use third party delivery? I think a small portion will, right. I think, in general, as a society in North America, we like people, you know, we'd like to get, we like to talk, we like to, you know we like to interact. That's not going away anytime soon.
Michael LeBlanc
So, I think, I think the, you know, it's gonna be so hard to tell, I think for everybody, because there'll be this period of time where we were like, "Oh, my God, I want out of this house, and I want to return to normal". And I think you're not going to be able to any of us are going to be able to tell where the water line sets out with that stuff for the you know, until 2022 because there'll be a rush in the stores because it's something you couldn't do. And you know, will you then go "Oh, yeah, I like to order online". Like it's gonna be very hard to read those tea leaves, I think.
Chris Schultz
Yeah, yeah. I like the convenience. I don't like, I don't like to pay the surcharges, right.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, right, of course.
Chris Schultz
None of us do.
Michael LeBlanc
Well listen, last question. We've already talked, it's kind of a funny one at this point. But what's next, you've talked about growing, the number of stores, is there anything else you'd add to the kind of what you have in mind to grow Voodoo Doughnut? is there is there a northbound exposure heading your way or,
Chris Schultz
Well, of course there is. Listen I, you know, always, right. The answer is yes, to all of that. And I think, you know, it's hold on, right. Never quite know where we're going to be, and what we're going to do. We're going to grow the brand and we're not going to be on every street corner. Where it doesn't, doesn't fit that, right. We're not going to become, with all due respect, an equibuous brand where you can just, ever corner exist, right. But we are thinking very strategically around where we go and where we put these stores and, and for us growth is, growth is a part of our DNA now. (inaudible) is is simply not an option. You know, we've committed to growth and now we've been committed to growth to our, to our investors, and the folks inside the organization. But to our people, right, and we've got to grow because we have some really good people, and they want to be managers, and they want to be district managers, and they want to be marketers, and
Michael LeBlanc
Grow the opportunities.
Chris Schultz
Without doing that. And everyone was willing to stand on the wayside for a year, maybe 18 months. But you know, that's gonna come back to the front and people are like, "Hey, okay, for 18 months I understand I waited, but I want to grow". And I think those organizations that can do that strategically, will have the advantage exactly what you're saying of hiring some really good people that just want an opportunity. They want to show you that they are there, they're willing and able to do the job.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on right on. Well, look, Chris, it's it's been great chatting with you. It's a it's a fantastic story. I think it's a story that's bigger than, bigger than the business so to speak. So that I was really thrilled that you can make time to speak with me and, and listen, I wish you much continued success and look forward to using my passport for something other than identification and getting in and trying some new doughnuts.
Chris Schultz
I really appreciate it. And again, I really appreciate the time and the audience and, you never know when we'll be able (inaudible), maybe soon.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, good enough. All right, thanks again.
Chris Schultz
Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc
If you like what you're heard, you can subscribe on Apple iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Please rate and review and be sure to recommend to a friend or colleague in the grocery, food service or restaurant industry. I'm Michael LeBlanc, Producer and Host of The Voice of Retail podcast a bunch of other stuff. My podcast partner, Sylvain Charlebois and I will be back next week. Have a safe week.