Monte Silva Champions People-First Restaurant Philosophy Through Coaching and Management

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Monte Silva, chief executive officer of Monte Silva coaching, a Florida based firm established in 2020 that provides high performance coaching for restaurant owners and business leaders.

offering personalized strategies to drive growth and streamline operations. Through this service, Monte has helped clients boost profitability and tap into new markets. Now his journey also includes co-founding 10 Tables Hospitality, a company focused on delivering intimate, high quality dining experiences. We’re gonna learn a lot more about that today. He’s also published the book Shift Happens, Seven Proven Strategies to Help Your Restaurant Crush in the New Economy.

showcasing his passion for creative solutions in a fast-changing industry. With over 25 years of restaurant leadership, he has managed high-revenue establishments, including Acme Feed and Seed, recognized as the 31st highest-grossing restaurant in the nation. Now, Monte’s ability to transform operations while maintaining a fresh perspective has earned him praise from peers and clients alike. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

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contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, CEO and owner of 10 Tables Hospitality and Monte Silva Coaching. Monte, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Monte Silva (02:04)
Yeah, I’m grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.

Anthony Codispoti (02:10)
So Monty, you’ve been in the restaurant industry for a long time. How did you first get your start?

Monte Silva (02:17)
Well, I started as a dishwasher in a hotel and at a restaurant and it was a steakhouse and ⁓ I kind of learned the early hustle. I had servers that would ask me for the scraps for their dogs. So I started selling meat scraps to the servers and they would tip me out and I actually made more money in scrap tips than I did in my hourly wage. So I learned very early that the restaurant industry is ⁓

⁓ industry that if you hustle and you work hard and you’re innovative you can you can do quite well.

Anthony Codispoti (02:55)
What was, before we get to sort of present day and what you’re working on now, as you look back, what’s maybe one of your more formidable stops along the way and why? What did you take away from?

Monte Silva (03:08)
I had a few different mentors, but one of the stories is I had the opportunity to be a GM for Wolfgang Puck. that’s where I kind of learned that food needs to look sexy, right? That the plates need to be very attractive and draw the eyes. We have our senses and when we…

utilize those senses, ⁓ we have memory recall, right? So if you smell something, your brain automatically starts thinking, where have I smelled that before? And that pulls up your memories and then ⁓ your memories elicit emotions. And so it can be a very ⁓ emotional experience and dining experience.

when you use your senses and certainly side in making the food look sexy as part of that. And the other thing with Wolfgang was he could work the floor better than anyone I’ve ever seen. ⁓ As big of a celebrity as he became, and he was taking care of a lot of celebrities ⁓ in the room, his focus was on them, not himself. And ⁓ he really…

taught me about how to work the room, talk to tables, and really orchestrate these amazing guest experiences.

Anthony Codispoti (04:34)
And so what does that

look like from a practical standpoint? How are you kind of working the room? What is it? You just, you know, hey, how’s your dinner? Is it sort of to that extent or did you have some other kind of like opening one liners that got that conversation kicked off?

Monte Silva (04:49)
Well, there’s a number of reasons and I just did ⁓ a segment on the lost art of table touches. And the reality is if you go to a restaurant, most restaurants, you never see the manager let alone engage with them. And what our role really is is, you know, we have two hats. We are a shift leader for that particular shift and then we might be the GM or the beverage director. And so most of the…

secondary beverage director or GM position, most of the work you do is more administrative, more task focused, writing schedules, ⁓ writing your orders, things like that, whereas your shift is very people focused. And so if you’re not on the floor with people, then you’re really not doing your job. And so the things you should be doing on the floor is supporting your team when it’s busy jumping in and helping them.

when it’s not as busy observing and keeping your head on a swivel so you can proactively see things coming that may need your attention. And if you do that in a way where I call them circle eights where you start at the host desk, you check to make sure that reservations are on time, that we are accommodating everyone and getting them in when their reservation is. If we’re creating a wait, how long are we quoting? ⁓

Then we go through the dining room, we touch tables of people that have just gotten their entrees ⁓ or their appetizers and just check really quick because if something needs to be fixed, it can be done very quickly. ⁓ Work your way into the kitchen, look at the window, make sure that ticket times are good, there’s not too many tickets. you see an overwhelming, ⁓ you know,

bunch of tickets in the window, then you can go back to the host desk and ask them to slow down the seating a little bit. Then you work your way through the bar, talk to tables in there, ask if the bartenders need change or anything, and then you work your way back up to the front. And by doing that and having that proactive nature, you can really ensure that the guest’s experience, even if it goes sideways a little bit, can be corrected very quickly. And you’re fixing it on spot, which is then going to

boost your online reviews and so forth. When it comes to, and really it’s, you you can’t say the same thing to each table. You can’t say, hi, how are you? How’s everything? Can I get you anything? Great, thanks for coming in. Hi, how are you? Can I get you anything? Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (07:31)
You want to keep it fresh. you’re if you’re just

repeating the same thing that you’ve said 12 times already that evening, you’re going to you’re going to sound like a robot, whether you mean to or not.

Monte Silva (07:39)
Yeah, and you want to go from transaction to human connection. And so you might ask why they’re there. And if it doesn’t already say so in your reservation platform, ⁓ you know, what brings you in? Hey, we’re celebrating our first date since, you know, since our baby was born. Well, that’s a big deal, right? Or maybe they’re traveling and you say, where are from? And they say, Hey, I’m from Seattle. And I said, my sister lives in Queen Anne, you know? And so ⁓ you’re able to create some connection.

right, which helps them realize, it helps them remember their home, where they live, and they enjoy talking about where they live. And I could say something like, man, I love the fish market where they throw those big pieces of fish down to each other. And then they start, you know, again, they’re eliciting memories and those memories are creating emotions. And so the goal really is to try to create a human connection with every guest that sits in your restaurant. And you can’t do that if you’re not

touching tables and engaging people. ⁓ And then I use, ⁓ if something has gone wrong, I use this formula called GLAD, where you go to the table. So G is go, L is for listen. People wanna be heard. And if they don’t feel heard from you in the restaurant, they will tell the world, zero review. ⁓ Apologize is A. So, ⁓

whether it’s your fault, whether it’s misperception on their part, it doesn’t really matter. Their perception is the reality. So apologize and then do whatever it takes. So glad, go to the table, listen, apologize, do whatever it takes. And I found that a lot of times people will do the bare minimum and you’re not wowing the guest at that point. so I always try to do a little extra to make sure that they leave happy.

That’s really ⁓ one of the biggest things I learned from Wolfgang was working the room.

Anthony Codispoti (09:44)
You know, and I love that last point that you’re talking about is, use that problem as an opportunity to completely flip the direction of the evening. had a business partner years ago who was great with this. we were, ⁓ fulfilling physical product orders and, know, sometimes people would get the wrong thing or what they got would be broken.

And he would get on the phone with them and he had a way of interacting with them, talking with them, apologizing, we’re going to fix it. We’re going to pay for shipping. You don’t need to send it back. And, you know, by the end of the call, they’re so happy they’re ordering more things from us. And we used to joke about, you know, maybe we should just screw up every order to give us the opportunity to sort of show that over the top level of service. Because I think a lot of times people are accustomed to when something goes wrong.

the vendor, the restaurant in this case, they’re kind of like, nothing we can do here. And so I love what you’re talking about there, Monty. It’s like, nah, we’re going to use this as an opportunity to really wow them, not just, here’s a free Pepsi on us. It’s like, what’s the over-the-top thing we can do that they’re going to really remember us for?

Monte Silva (10:58)
Yeah, one of my best VIPs started off not so well. We were on an hour wait at a restaurant. I was running a Fleming steakhouse and we were on an hour. This one table was waiting an hour for their food and it was a party of six. I ended up comping the whole bill. was 500 bucks. And that guy probably brought me over the next 12 years, probably brought me 100 grand of business.

Anthony Codispoti (11:27)
That’s a pretty good ROI if you want to just look at it in dollars and cents. That’s a pretty good ROI Yeah, okay. So where did the idea to start your coaching Monte? So let coaching come from

Monte Silva (11:28)
So, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what’s interesting is I was working in restaurants. I was at a restaurant in Nashville and I was the GM. And I came home one day and my wife said, you’ve got to see this show. So went to the family room and Robert Irvine, Restaurant Impossible was on. And my wife was like, you could totally do that. And that was in, what?

2011, I believe. And I was like, yeah, it’s a cool show. And I started watching it, but I never really thought of myself doing that kind of work. And so when COVID hit, the restaurant industry obviously took a huge hit and a lot of restaurants shut down in Nashville. It was pretty brutal. They not only did the six foot rule, but they only allowed 25 % occupancy.

And they didn’t allow you to put tables on the pad on the sidewalks or the parking lots So it made it very very difficult to survive and then on top of that They raised property taxes 26 % to offset the lost revenue which then hurt the Landlords that couldn’t help their restaurants and so Nashville took a pretty bad hit and at the time

⁓ I had a one-year-old son and my wife was a stay-at-home mom and I’m like, what the crap am I gonna do? I can’t get work for the first time in my career. And so we decided to move to Florida where there were safety precautions but there was a desire to keep businesses open and running safely. And so I moved down and I got a job ⁓ as a managing partner of a restaurant and

while I’ve even before I moved, started thinking about how can I A, make money for myself and my family ⁓ and B, how can I help other people that are gonna be struggling through this time? And so I had to really kind of think about, okay, what am I good at? What do people need? And how can I solve their problems? And so I created Monte Silva coaching. ⁓

started writing a blog. The blog was called hashtag restaurant tour. That ended up becoming ⁓ a blog called shift happens. And that basically got me to write a column called shift happens for FSR magazine. And that became the book. So that’s kind of how I got into it. I wanted to help people.

I wanted to create a revenue stream that was not dependent upon somebody else, that was purely based on my talent and skillset. And then I wanted to also, you know, be home more of my one-year-old and my wife. So that’s kind of how all that came about. ⁓ And I had several customer, you know, clients in the beginning that really didn’t know how to create margin in their life.

to be able to work on the business instead of in it. So they were always working in the.

Anthony Codispoti (15:03)
Were you able to

find consulting clients during this time? Because a lot of the restaurants were shut down. Probably people not looking to do anything other than hoard what little cash they have.

Monte Silva (15:15)
Yeah, everything that I did was virtual. So I was able to take on clients all around the country. I have a client in Richmond, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (15:33)
Okay, so you were able to get some clients during this time. And how

has it evolved today?

Monte Silva (15:39)
So what I’ve done, because I ⁓ co-started another company that I’m very excited and focused on, I’m shifting from the one-on-one model to more of a group mastermind. So ⁓ in addition to speaking at conferences, which I’ve got some great ⁓ events coming up, I also wrote the book Shift Happens. I’m working on a second book called Transformational Hospitality.

turning transaction into human connection. That’ll be out next year. And so under Montesilva coaching, the speaking and the writing and things like that are living. And then rather than doing the one-on-one coaching, I’m gonna be launching a group mastermind in October where I’ll take 20 restaurant owners that want to really dig in. And we cover five core ⁓ pillars that is going to help them.

really be successful. It centers around people, product, process, purchases. Purchases include not only sales where you’re building your sales with what the guests are spending, but also what you’re spending in the restaurant and then profitability. during the three months, the focus will be on those five categories to really ramp up their businesses. really any decision you make is going to fall into one of at least one of those five categories.

Anthony Codispoti (17:05)
And so who’s the target for this? Who’s the ideal person to join this mastermind?

Monte Silva (17:10)
⁓ It could it could either be someone that owns a restaurant group, maybe they have one to four restaurants one to five restaurants ⁓ It could be Someone I spoke in Vegas at bar and restaurant expo last year and I met a guy who has 85 franchise ⁓ Outbacks You know, so it could be a larger group like that and and maybe you know, we have a discount

if someone wants to bring their GMs with them into the training, so where I’m really training their leaders as well. ⁓ It could be corporate, but it’s probably more of the ⁓ restaurant owner that has one to 100.

Anthony Codispoti (17:56)
And where can

people find information about this?

Monte Silva (18:00)
You can reach out, you can follow me on my LinkedIn page, Monte Silva Coaching. You can also email me. I’m revamping my website right now, so montesilvacoaching.com is not currently up, but I’m about to revamp that and get that back up. Or you can email me at monti at 10 tables hospitality, 10 is spelled out, T-E-N, ⁓ dot com, and then I can go from there.

Anthony Codispoti (18:28)
And you

know what I really like about this mastermind concept that you’re talking about, and I’ve had the opportunity to discuss this with a number of guests in the past. I think, you know, anytime you’re running a business, um, it can be pretty lonely at the top, right? Everybody looks to you within your organization. Everybody looks to you to have the answers. Sometimes you do a lot of times you don’t, and you’re just kind of making it up on the fly. And so when you can bring together some peers and you’ve got an expert like yourself at the helm.

Wow, it just there’s this sense of community one, which is great because you kind of feel like you’re on an island is the leader of your restaurant group. But then there’s also just this place that you can go to for answers. Hey, I’m having this HR issue. Hey, I’m having this payroll issue. And there’s somebody in the group. And in this case, a lot of times going to be you that has had that issue. Hey, here’s what I’ve done. Here’s a vendor that you should call. I mean, that that kind of support, it’s

Obviously you are putting a price tag on it, but it’s hard to put a price tag on the value that it delivers.

Monte Silva (19:33)
Yeah. And what’s interesting is I, you know, I anticipated when I started the coaching that I was going to get these people that had no clue what they were doing, that they had never been in the restaurant business. I only had one client that had never worked in a restaurant that owned their own restaurant. Everybody else was actually very successful to a certain degree, but they kind of hit that plateau because most of it was based off their own effort. And, ⁓ and so

really was just helping them build the right teams, put the right processes in place. You know, just like I said, people and process are two big parts of that. ⁓ and, and what I’ve also learned over time is two things. One, none of us are as smart as all of us. So, so you have a perspective that I don’t have because of your experience and maybe you don’t have, you know, a total of 40 plus years in the industry between hourly positions and

and salary management positions, but you would bring a unique perspective of your experience, that may be still something that I’m not familiar with, right? So ⁓ by having that group dynamic, we’re able to share ideas and put best practices in place. And yeah, a lot of them will come from me, but not all of them. ⁓ And then the other one to your point is just not feeling like you’re by yourself.

And then lastly, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know and all of a sudden somebody else in the group asks a question and you’re like, yeah, you know what? I need help in that area too, right? They don’t know that they do. They’re not thinking about it because maybe they have a bigger issue that they’re tackling. And so that group dynamic really creates a community of people that support each other. ⁓ We’ll end up doing some live events as well in person. ⁓

so that people can come and meet each other in person. But yeah, ultimately ⁓ each week there’ll be some dripped content. might be ⁓ some reading. It might be a video I’ve recorded, pre-recorded. There will be a master class every week on a subject where I run the class and then there’s Q &A afterwards. Everyone will get a copy of my book and a lot of different stuff. So it should be really great value.

And I priced it in a way so that I can help a good amount of people. But there’ll be groups of 20, so it’ll be a very intimate opportunity to spend time with me and other entrepreneurs.

Anthony Codispoti (22:12)
Yeah.

And you know, from the masterminds that I’ve been a part of in the past, the other thing that it’s been really helpful for is in making me think bigger, because I see what some of the other people in the room are doing and how they’re stretching even further than I was. And I’m like, OK, like I need to expand my thinking. So I think it’s really good from that perspective, too. But I want to hear now about 10 Tables Hospitality. This is more recent and this is something that you’re really excited about. Tell us what’s going on here.

Monte Silva (22:42)
Yeah, so I was very fortunate when I spent a little bit of time in Cincinnati and I met a gentleman named Mark Budenstein and he is a very talented chef. He owned his own restaurant at the time. We became really good friends. And because of our level of expertise, was a chef as well, so I have some kitchen background, but

I’m definitely, I lean towards the front of the house. And so we both felt like we were at similar levels of our expertise in back of the house and front of the house. And so we decided that with our passions that we had ⁓ and similar ideas that we should partner together. And that was in 2015. ⁓ And then we didn’t do anything about it, 2014.

He went on to be the corporate chef of a restaurant group in Cincinnati. I moved back to Nashville, was the director of ops in Nashville. And then when COVID hit and I moved to just south of Tampa, I’ve been here for four years. And then last November, he called me up and said, hey, I’m gonna move to St. Pete. Do you wanna finally do what we talked about? And so, yeah, so.

Anthony Codispoti (24:06)
which is right in your backyard.

Monte Silva (24:09)
So we launched 10 Tables Hospitality in December. And the idea behind it is we believe that

Trying to properly take care of people when you’re scaling a massive restaurant like Acme Feed and Seed was four floors. We did 18 and a half million a year. It was a very low check average because we sold 70 % alcohol, but it was a $18 per person check average. So you’re looking at a million visitors a year. How many of those people do I get to touch?

And so we wanted to create smaller, more intimate spaces so that we could really, really control the guest experience. And so we’re going to own our own restaurants. And the first one we opened was Comida, which we just opened this past ⁓ June. It’s a elevated Latin American restaurant. Very clean, healthy eating, no seed oils.

100 % gluten free, including our churro donut holes. ⁓ Lots of vegetarian and vegan options. And we just believed, we kept away from all of the ⁓ dangerous ⁓ toxins that are sprayed on things. eat local source, we do a lot of those things. So we opened up Comida and as an example of being able to do something smaller, there’s 50 seats in the restaurant and

And we had 119 straight five-star reviews on Google before we dropped the ball and got a four-star. So, you know, being able to really, yeah, yeah, it was devastating. And it was because we didn’t have tofu on the menu. was why we got four-stars. Which, you know, it allows us to think, okay, how can we do better? And our chefs specifically didn’t want tofu because of, there’s a lot of very bad things.

Anthony Codispoti (25:51)
What a devastating day.

Monte Silva (26:11)
for your body that are in tofu. So we’re going to be adding a dish that’s made with chickpeas. It’s a tofu made with chickpeas. And so he’s going to be able to offer something very clean, but it will accommodate that four star person. So we’re going to own restaurants like Comida and they’re going to be between Sarasota, Bradenton, St. Pete, Tampa and Clearwater. We have some opportunities in Clearwater that have come up and some other areas.

Anthony Codispoti (26:26)
I love it.

Monte Silva (26:39)
So we’ll be expanding that and we’ll do multiple. Nope, have different. Yeah, we’ll have different concepts. We were only going to do one cometa, but there’s interest now in St. Pete and Clearwater. So we’ll probably do about three of those and then we’ll do some other concepts. And then the second leg of 10 tables hospitality is a management thing, which I’m really excited about because there’s not really anybody doing this. There might be a few one-offs here and there, but it’s,

Anthony Codispoti (26:40)
Are these all gonna be the Komeda brand or they’re gonna be other concepts?

Monte Silva (27:09)
very, ⁓ there’s a much greater need than current supply. Where if you think about hotels, Marriott and Hilton don’t own the properties. They’re the management company that runs them and their brand represents that hotel and that owner. And so we’re going to offer management services to restaurant owners where if they don’t have the infrastructure of a corporate office that we provide that. So

We’ll provide the director of ops kind of support to the GM and chef to run the day to day to make sure the guest experience is fantastic, that the food quality is there, the restaurants are clean. We’ll offer financial support where we are ⁓ doing inventory management and cost of goods control that we’re doing P &Ls and really helping manage the finances.

We’ll offer HR and payroll. ⁓ It’s interesting that we’re on this call today because we’re gonna be needing to talk to a company about benefits so you and I should have a future conversation. And that would be for our own restaurants as well as those that we’re managing. And then we also offer marketing support. ⁓ So that’s the management arm of it. So we have the ownership and you know.

of our own restaurants, management of other people’s restaurants. And we can do that for either a percentage of sales off the top or some ownership in the company. ⁓ And then we offer straight consulting services where we might help somebody with a turnaround that has a failing restaurant. I’ve done 15 turnarounds in my career and none of the restaurants closed. ⁓ Or we can do startups and Mark and I have done probably 30 openings.

the two of us. So that’s kind of what 10 Tables hospitality is. So it is taking up a lot of more of my time, which is why I’m shifting from the one-on-one coaching through month and scope of coaching to the master.

Anthony Codispoti (29:17)
So Monty,

I want to better understand the ⁓ management component of this. And you drew the comparison to the hotel industry. ⁓ For example, Hilton, right? They’re not managing most of their properties. Is that correct?

Monte Silva (29:35)
So Hilton doesn’t own the properties. ⁓ Somebody that owns the hotel will, and it’s a little bit different because they’re bringing their brand name recognition as well. It is kind of a licensing thing though, where the hotel owner has the right, has purchased the right to put Hilton or Marriott or one of the sub.

Anthony Codispoti (29:38)
Okay.

Yeah, is that like a franchise model or?

Monte Silva (30:05)
categories, know, Hampton Inn, whatever, on their hotel, but it comes with the management structure where they actually run the operation for you. So the restaurant groups we work with, it won’t say 10 Tables Hospitality, you know, on the building. ⁓ It’ll say, you know, Luis’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant or whatever, whatever it is. ⁓

So we won’t necessarily bring the branding unless they want us to put some marketing on there that says, A10 Tables Hospitality Company. If we come in as part owner of the business, then they’ll be represented on our website and we’ll be promoting them through our own marketing sources as well.

but it’s less about the brand of 10 Tables hospitality and more about the management support.

Anthony Codispoti (31:06)
So this is kind of a new model in the restaurant space. You said, might be some one-offs here or there. As you have tried to explain this concept to people in the space, what’s their reaction like? Do they get it? Do they see a need for it? If they do, who’s sort of like the typical profile?

Monte Silva (31:28)
Yeah, if it’s a one-off, if it’s a singular restaurant owner that only has one property, they stayed pretty hands-on and they don’t really see the need for it. But as people are scaling, for instance, we’re talking to a ⁓ restaurant owner. He has an Italian restaurant and has a steakhouse and he wants to expand the steakhouse concept. And he basically said straight up, I don’t have the firepower.

He said, I need help getting this first steakhouse exactly where I want it. He took it when he took over, he took it from 1 million to 2 million and potentially it’s a $5 million a year restaurant. ⁓ And he said, I don’t really have the firepower to get it to 5 million. And he wants, he’s already looking at a second location once, once the restaurant gets where to, where he wants it. And so he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to be able to expand.

to that level. So it’s really people like that, people that wanna scale. One of my last one-on-one clients had restaurants in, he two restaurants in ⁓ Illinois and one in Tennessee. And ⁓ we worked together for about a year as his coach. And we scaled from three to five. And I helped him figure out how do ⁓ we track top talent.

you know, kind of benefits packages do we need to put together for them? ⁓ How do we put the right systems in place that can be monitored from a single location? ⁓ And so we grew in that year, we grew from three to five restaurants. So that’s an example of somebody that needs extra help with the firepower. ⁓ But for us, beyond just kind of getting that first restaurant to…

be all it can be and then begin to duplicate that. ⁓ We can also come into places that have, you know, five, 10 restaurants that don’t have the corporate structure yet. And they’re frantically trying to, you know, put thumbs in all the holes that are missing and they just need it.

Anthony Codispoti (33:42)
Yeah, because

it’s one thing to be the person that can sort of get it off the ground and get a few ⁓ locations opened. But then once you start scaling beyond a certain point, it takes a different set of skills, a different set of infrastructure. And that’s where your expertise comes in. Right, Monty?

Monte Silva (33:59)
Yeah, and not only even going back to an earlier, that’s a great observation, even going back to an earlier ⁓ part of that process when you have a singular restaurant, ⁓ it’s a very different skill set to open a restaurant than it is to operate a restaurant. It’s very, very task focused when you’re opening a restaurant. ⁓

Like, I’ve done, think a dozen or so openings myself. And it requires a lot of focused detail on the tasks and the checklists and everything else. Whereas in operations, it’s about, you know, culture building and the guest experience and cost control and all of those other factors that fit in those five pillars that I mentioned earlier.

and it’s a very different skill set. I’ve been very fortunate ⁓ through having ADD. I’ve had to teach myself to be very focused when it comes to the granular ⁓ details and tasks. And so I’ve been able to like be that visionary creative guy who’s creating concepts and ideas and crazy stuff in my head, which there’s always some crazy idea out there. But then being able to…

bring it down to ground level and execute. And they’re very, very different skills. And ⁓ through trial and error, I’ve become very good at both of those.

Anthony Codispoti (35:36)
kinds of restaurants are a good fit? Is this more fine dining, like casual sit down, can like QSR kind of fit under or is that not really your area of expertise?

Monte Silva (35:47)
Yeah,

I’m not really doing the QSR model. There’s a project we’re going to be doing where we’re going to put a restaurant in a food hall and we’ll control the alcohol for the whole food hall. And then there will be some QSR spots in there and we’re going to help find those QSR companies and then also kind of manage the whole food hall.

where we’re there to support the QSRs, but we aren’t really creating our own QSR concepts, nor are we focused on management contracts with those people. It’s a different.

Anthony Codispoti (36:29)
Would they be

a good fit for your mastermind or not so much?

Monte Silva (36:35)
⁓ QSRs you mean? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, especially when you’re focused on systems, if you’re a franchise, you probably have a pretty good system in place. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bought into the franchise. But for people that are creating concepts, QSR concepts at a non-franchise level, then yeah, there’s definitely opportunities for us to help you.

especially on the people process, product, know, and profit side for sure. So back to your question, I think for management company, you know, someone that wants to scale, but again, doesn’t have the bandwidth to get there, or they need some help getting that first, because, you know, once you create that perfect model, and you…

Identify your avatar and what you’re going for and you have your systems in place and you have your Order guides and who you’re buying product from it’s very easy to replicate as long as you can as long as you can attract great people

Anthony Codispoti (37:45)
Hmm. Let’s talk a little bit about your book shift happens. So in there you outline seven strategies to help restaurants adapt. But Monte, if you had to choose just one strategy, just single that out that consistently drives success for people, what would that be?

Monte Silva (38:06)
Now you it’s like picking a kid So in the book I talk about There they’re basically seven false beliefs There’s more than that really but I identify seven false beliefs that we believe for the last 50 years that really ruined our industry and ⁓ I’ll mention a couple just very quickly and then I’ll dial in on one so that includes things like You have to underpay your people to be profitable

Another one is you have to work 70 hours a week to be successful. Another one is good people are hard to find. So I’ll go with the first one about underpaying your people to be profitable. The problem with our industry is we focus so much on percentages of cost that we

devalued the greatest asset we have, which is people. And so when we looked at people as a labor line on a P &L, it detracts from our profit, right? It costs us money. And so when we look at them as a liability, we try to underpay them. We undertrain them because we don’t want to spend the money. And that could be either not enough training hours or

Anthony Codispoti (39:29)
Mm-hmm.

Monte Silva (39:36)
resources, it could be not letting them taste the food because you don’t want to have to pay for that. But we’re underpaying them or under training them and then we’re under scheduling them. But if you think about it, looking at two different departments in a restaurant, you’ve got your line cooks and you have your servers and your bartenders, right? Any company

that wants to grow has to increase their production and increase their sales force, right? And so if you’re trying to scale your restaurant and grow it, if you cut your line cooks, you’re cutting production. Cut your servers, you’re cutting your salespeople. And if you’re cutting your bartenders, you’re cutting your salesforce and your production, right? And so no company can grow their business

by cutting their production and their sales force. So when we’re cutting, we think, okay, they’re a liability, so we’re gonna cut them as much as we can, we’re gonna pay them as little as possible, we’re not gonna offer them benefits, things like that. And then the cost of turnover is outrageous, because not only are you paying for a new person to train at a non-tip rate, but you’re paying somebody else to also train them, right?

And if you look at them as an asset on a balance sheet, then you’re looking at them as like something that can grow. You want to invest in your people because they’re going to grow and you’re going to be able to grow your sales, your business, you’re going to be able to grow your people. And so I always look at restaurants as a greenhouse for growing our greatest assets.

Anthony Codispoti (41:32)
I like that a lot. How about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, Monte, whether it was personal or professional, how did you get through that and what did you learn going through it?

Monte Silva (41:44)
It was both personal and professional. The one I’m gonna share. There’s lots. Certainly where I am now came from a lot of ⁓ heartache and bad decisions and watching other people make bad decisions. It’s really kind of fine-tuned and that’s where a lot of my knowledge for the book came from. But when I was with Wolfgang Puck, I was running two restaurants as the GM. So I would…

get to one restaurant at 8 a.m. and I worked till four. And I jump on the 405 and I would drive to the other restaurant and work five to midnight six days a week. So I was clocking 90 hours a week. Had Sundays off and I would just sleep. I was married, went through divorce, went through burnout. And I decided that…

Because when I started my career ⁓ as a manager in 94, ⁓ I was a GM for Wolfgang Puck in four years from my very first management position at a Mexican restaurant. I went through bar manager, assistant KM, service manager, chef, GM in two different companies all in four years and then went to work for Wolfgang.

four years into my career. So it was a very, very fast rise, but it cost me a lot in my mental and physical health as well as my relationship. So I went through a divorce, went through burnout, decided that I was just gonna go to Vegas and be a captain in a restaurant and take a break and work 30 hours a week. And some of that was self-inflicted because I’m a very…

It’s hard to turn my brain off. And so when I get home from work, have to figure ways to decompress. And so I took the break in Vegas, but so Wolfgang’s team said, look, if you’re going to go to Vegas, you you should at least still work with us, even if you just want to be a captain and then we’re ready to jump back in. We’ll bring you back into management. And so I did that and I was in Vegas for four years and really took a break. But during that time.

at a lot of time to self reflect and the burnout and the failed relationship had a lot to do with my inability to delegate and my inability to develop people. It’s like I took all the reins and I tried to do it all myself with the white knuckles, holding on to everything very fiercely.

I wanted to control every guest experience, every dish, every, and because of that, I was always there. And working for Wolfgang Puck, I had John Travolta and Meg Ryan and Donald Sutherland and Oliver Stone and all these celebrities. And I felt like I always had to be in the building when I knew they were coming. So what I learned from that is,

that the restaurant industry is not a sprint. There are moments of sprinting, right? A new opening, Valentine’s Day, you know, things like that. There’s moments of sprinting, but it’s a marathon if you want to be in the business. And I would have never made it, you know, 15 years in the hourly ranks and over 25 in management had I not learned that this is a marathon. And I need to figure out

How do I pace myself to where I’m aggressively growing the business, but I’m also taking time to replenish to have healthy relationships. And what I learned was if you’ve got your personal relationships, you know, or your personal life and your business life, once you bring your business life into your personal life, your personal life suffers, right? ⁓

And then when your personal life suffers, it affects your business because you are thinking about home when you’re at work and you’re thinking about work when you’re at home. And then you do both very poorly. ⁓ And so I learned how to, ⁓ to grow people and to delegate. And unless it’s a decision that’s going to close your restaurant, you need to let people learn from their mistakes and grow.

And then I created a This this thing I said look if something is important but not urgent and I’m off email And when I have time, I’ll look at it. It’s important. I won’t forget it. It’s email if it is Urgent but not important make a decision yourself right and if it is urgent and important

you can call me or text me all my day off. So what urgent and important is not, hey, somebody wants to be cut. Urgent and important is the restaurant’s on fire. There’s $1,000 missing in the safe. Somebody just fell off a ladder and is rushed. Those are urgent and important. And as you teach people how to make their own decisions,

on the smaller things and there’s less and less that needs to get to your level, then you’ll be able to have the time when you’re off to replenish, recharge, spend time with your loved ones. And so that was the most valuable thing I learned was you need to grow your people so that you can delegate and you need to develop them and you need to have safeguards in place to protect yourself from burnout because it is a marathon, not a sprint.

Anthony Codispoti (47:57)
Did you, after that sort of four year stint in Vegas, move back from being a captain into management?

Monte Silva (48:04)
Yeah, so I moved to Nashville, got back into restaurant management. That’s when I was working with Fleming’s when I first got there. And I met my wife, Anita, who now we’ve been married. We just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary, which has been a challenge because she was a school teacher and she didn’t understand the life we live.

It took a while and I was still kind of learning how to balance life and work. ⁓ But she’s been a trooper and you know, it’s really hung in there and now that my schedule is freer and I can spend more time with her and my son, ⁓ it’s a really great life.

Anthony Codispoti (48:50)
I want to go back to when you were in California and you hit that burnout stage, working 80 hours a week, your marriage fails partially as a result of that. I you hit on that, but, you know, hey, and then I moved to Vegas and, you know, took a break. But what was that period like for you? How did you actually find your way through it? I that’s, that’s a really hard thing when you.

You know, both your marriage and your career get sidetracked, get derailed. That’s probably a better word.

Monte Silva (49:24)
Yeah,

mean, you lose, work was an identity for me. So I felt like a failure in the relation aspect, because I grew up in a very conservative family that you married for life. My parents were married their whole time until my father passed. so I felt like a failure in that. I felt like a failure.

running restaurants for Wolfgang Puck and then not, you know, I was at the height of, it wasn’t the height of my career, but it was the height of my career at the time. And it was very prestigious. I was featured in a book ⁓ by David Steadman. ⁓

called Bev Biz is Show Biz. And I was extremely well known in Southern Cal and you I could walk past the lines at, you know, the Sky Bar and different, you know, very elite nightclubs that, you know, I had a pass to pass by everyone and get in because I was a GM for Wolfgang Clark. And it was very prestigious time. I was dining at

the best restaurants in the city and going to sporting events. ⁓ so feeling that failure of, wow, I’m no longer a GM for Wolfgang Puck. And it was a personal choice that I made, but ⁓ it still hurt. And it was difficult. It was fine in Vegas because I didn’t want to pursue restaurant management again.

And it was a good break for me. And as I thought through that process of getting back in, ⁓ it was a good time for me to reflect and kind of see, okay, what do I need to do differently? ⁓ And so a lot of the book, ⁓ Shift Happens, comes from that period of reflection of failure and feeling like I hit the bottom, you know.

And it wasn’t the only time there’s been peaks and valleys through my career when I got laid off, you know, COVID, because I was the only non-family member of the corporate level. There’s these peaks and valleys in my career, but as I look back, if I were to take a graph, every time I hit a valley, my next rise was higher than my previous. And I think if we learn to fail forward, which is a great book, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (52:01)
on a winter’s day.

Monte Silva (52:08)
John Maxwell wrote called failing forward. You learn to pick yourself up from a failure and keep going then I think that that’s your really your greatest resource for growth and I think that we need

Anthony Codispoti (52:26)
I think you

shared with me before we went live, the mess is your message. What does that mean to you?

Monte Silva (52:33)
Well, when I started Monte Silva coaching, know, my first clients were people that were out of control with their schedule. They were workaholics and they couldn’t spend time with their kids and their loved ones. I had a client that husband and wife team and he worked on the business and she worked in it and she was there every day, never could take a day off, didn’t trust her staff to run it as well as she did.

She never saw her kids. When she would come home, she would talk work with her husband. So there was no separation there. My second client, the wife never took a day off. And her son, one of her sons actually is the one that reached out to me and said, hey, I need you to help my mom, you know? And so the mess of burnout and not having things in proper.

perspective and sequence allowed me to get very good at fixing those situations and so that became my message. Hey, this is what happened to me. I failed miserably through burnout, divorce, and then I climbed back up the mountain and I can help you. So being able to share your mess with someone and let them know that hey, I’ve been where you are.

is very comforting to people. ⁓ It requires humility, but I think every great leader has ⁓ tempered humility and empathy into their leadership style. And so I was able to understand where they were ⁓ and they were able to appreciate that I’ve been there. And it really created ⁓ some…

long lasting life relationships with people. The client that was the husband and wife team, they’re investors in 10 Tables Hospitality. Through that relationship, we’ve become quite close and they love everything that I’ve done and wanted to be a part of it, so they’ve invested. The second client that the son reached out to me and said, hey, I need you to help my mom, she can’t take a day off. Her name is Rosie, I still call her once a year.

I haven’t worked with her since 2020, the fourth quarter of 2020. But I still call her and check on her and make sure she’s still taking days off. It’s really great. think when you’re on your journey as an entrepreneur, even if you’re a solopreneur, you need to figure out how to engage in relationships and community with people because it makes you

It makes what you do so much better. Now, the couple that the wife couldn’t take a day off, they live in a separate state from the restaurants they own and operate. I’ll check in and they’re like, hey, we’re bike riding with our boys. Can we call you back? It gives me great, I feel a real sense of reward when I can help somebody like that.

Anthony Codispoti (55:54)
You know, somebody recently shared this with me. There’s sort of the common adage that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, right? And they pointed out that that’s wrong. It’s not even the journey. It’s who you walk that path with. It’s that human connection that you have along the way. It’s your client, you know, out riding bikes with their kids where, you know, a few years ago that wasn’t within the realm of possibility for them.

Monte Silva (56:22)
Yeah, the journey is where you learn the most, right? And that when you’re down in the pit, it’s no fun sometimes, but you’re right. It’s more fun when you get to take that journey with other people. think we all, as a visionary, I’m always thinking about what’s ahead. Even in my family life, I want better things for my family, but I have to…

stop and smell the roses, enjoy the moment as well.

You know when you have a six year old kid that changes your perspective on all this stuff.

Anthony Codispoti (57:04)
Just a little bit. Monty, I’ve just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, for everyone listening today, thank you. I invite you to pause just for a second. Go to your podcast app you’re listening on right now. Hit the follow or subscribe button. It’s a great way to help the show and a great way for you to continue to get more wonderful content like we’ve had here today with Monty Silver from 10 Tables Hospitality.

And if you’ve got an extra second, you want to leave a review or a comment, that helps us even more. It helps a lot of people find the show. Monti, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. You were sharing some of those earlier. We got LinkedIn. You shared your email address. Anything else you want to put out there?

Monte Silva (57:45)
Yeah, I am, so I’ve got friends in the industry, ⁓ two in particular that have shared this with me. ⁓ And they say that they are wildly available. ⁓ I have a friend named Troy Hooper who is the CEO of Pepper Lunch in North America. Yeah, and he is.

Anthony Codispoti (58:09)
I’m he’s a guest on the show previously. Yeah, he’s a good guy.

Monte Silva (58:13)
wildly successful and wildly busy. He’s got a young, youngster in the house as well. And he travels, his travel schedule is just sick. but he always has time. If I call, he always picks up. ⁓ he was just here in Tampa meeting some potential, ⁓ franchisees for other areas. ⁓ and he was showing them

⁓ the restaurant in Tampa and he decided to stay an extra night in a hotel so that he could drive down and have dinner at my restaurant. And so I try to be that way as well. Robert Irvine is a good friend of mine. So funny story I mentioned earlier. ⁓ So I got to meet Robert and we became friends and I told him the story about how my wife said you gotta.

you gotta see this guy, you could do this. And so he wrote the forward for my book, Shift Happens, but he’s wildly available. And so I’m happy to give my cell phone too for anyone that wants to reach out. It’s area code 615, which is Nashville, 934-0261. If I don’t recognize the number, I typically don’t pick up, because there’s a lot of spam out there, but…

But if you leave a message, I make an effort to give back to everybody. But that’s really my email address, ⁓ my LinkedIn page, and this whole thing.

Anthony Codispoti (59:48)
Well, that’s pretty generous, Monte. We’ll

make sure we include links to all of that, including your phone number and the show notes for folks. Last question I have for you. You’ve got a long history in the industry. You’ve got a vision of kind of where you guys are going, where the industry itself is going. What do you think is the biggest change that’s coming in your space here in the next couple of years?

Monte Silva (1:00:12)
I think that tech has grown significantly over the last several years. And I think that everybody ran to it and I think that it’s important. ⁓ But it shouldn’t be replacing people, right? It should be, you should build a tech stack that allows you to be more available to your team and your guests.

and not replacing you with your team and your guests or replacing, know, I believe that QSR will go to a greater level of tech and less bodies, but I believe people still are starving for attention and they’re starving for, to feel relevant and important to someone. And I don’t think that tech is going to replace that.

And that’s why I’m writing this new book, Transformational Hospitality, because I believe that mid-level and up to fine dining is still gonna require heavily on the guest experience, which is ultimately more about hospitality than service.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:26)
Any idea when the new book will be available, Marty?

Monte Silva (1:01:30)
⁓ I would imagine sometime over the summer.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:35)
this summer.

Monte Silva (1:01:36)
This, no, like this, yeah, next, one of them sits, yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:38)
Following summer, so 2026. Okay, still in progress, great.

Well, that’ll give us a good excuse to reconnect in a year and see what’s going on, get some updates about that book.

Monte Silva (1:01:46)
Yeah,

yeah. I definitely want to talk to you offline about your services because I think that there’s a great opportunity to provide benefits for people that can be affordable. And I think that the model that you present is kind of the way of the future.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:08)
Well, I appreciate that little plug there and we’ll make sure we do that. But for now, Monte Silva from 10 Tables Hospitality, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with everyone today. I really appreciate it.

Monte Silva (1:02:20)
Well, I appreciate you. It’s great to connect with you online and hopefully one day in person.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:27)
I’d love that. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.