A 10x Acquisition and Three Heart Surgeries Shaped How Craig Cooper Helps Lead Love Management Today

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
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. As you listen today let one idea shape what you do next.

My name is Anthony Cotis-Bode and today’s guest is Craig L. Cooper, Chief Financial Officer at Love Management, Inc. This award-winning hospitality group founded by Chef Tim Love operates multiple restaurant concepts known for their live fire cooking style, bold flavors, and unforgettable event experiences. Craig leads the financial strategy for this fast growing enterprise, ensuring it stays innovative and efficient.

Holding an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, Craig has spent years guiding restaurant and consumer food businesses towards success. Before finance leadership at Love Management, he held roles directing strategic initiatives and planning at well-known brands, helping them expand and strengthen their operations. Under his guidance, teams have thrived in fast-paced environments, and he’s been recognized for his forward-thinking approach to company growth.

Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency. Listen, if you run a business, you’re likely stuck in the cycle of rising insurance premiums. You’re paying more, but your team, they’re getting less. And many people can’t afford coverage at all. We do things differently. So we provide your restaurant employees with unlimited access to doctors, therapists, and prescriptions that’s always free for them to use. But here’s where you really need to pay attention.

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Craig Cooper (02:10)
Anthony, thanks for that great introduction. I was blushing a little bit while you’re doing that, but thank you for that all the same.

Anthony Codispoti (02:16)
Absolutely. Well

earned, Craig, as we’re going to all find out here today as we go through the interview. So back to the beginning. When did you first realize that you had a knack for finance? When were you drawing?

Craig Cooper (02:28)
I don’t know that it was really, I understood I had a knack for finance more of, I liked solving problems. And I think in some of early days in my career at KPMG, I got to do that across a lot of companies. And I think I really, really enjoyed helping companies, you know, be more efficient and, you know, help them solve some of the issues that they are facing. And I think that’s more the, what I fell into more than like, you know, core finance.

Anthony Codispoti (02:57)
And then, you know, what kinds of companies were you working with at KPMG just across the board or do you have certain sectors?

Craig Cooper (03:03)
Well, I got

a lot of different flavors for different kinds of companies. It was primarily in financial services though.

Anthony Codispoti (03:10)
Okay, so from there, your next stop was with, you know, powerhouse in the industry, the restaurant industry that is Darden restaurants, but what kind of pulled you towards the the restaurant space?

Craig Cooper (03:22)
Sure, backing up just a bit. after my time at KPMG, I went back to business school as you talked about. And at the time I disillusioned a little bit with the financial services and I was looking for something different. So I was taking a lot of different kinds of interviews with companies, just really trying to find what I thought would be a good fit for myself. And it really kind of fell into hospitality almost.

just by chance. took interview with Darden. I was interviewing with one of their SVPs of operations and we just really hit it off. I think his brother had gone to Notre Dame and we kind of bonded over that. And again, like I said, we just had a good relationship. Again, I took that position and really started to learn a lot from him. Again, he’s still considering him a mentor today. Really did a lot in terms of

taking a different approach to restaurants, know, really talking about guest experience and the importance of team building and that, and really what was inspired there. And, you know, and I think back, it’s really, really cool. You know, we had a team of, you know, nine or so that we were working with, you know, people coming and going, but, you know, I look back and I can count probably five or six executives that had come off that team of, you know, that SVP and his directors and myself. And it’s really…

amazing to see all the people I got to work with during that time. And it’s really no wonder you work around people that that passionate about industry, you just kind of fall in and you kind of build that yourself.

Anthony Codispoti (05:03)
Yeah, I wonder looking back if you hadn’t been so fortunate to land with such a great mentor, if you would have continued in the hospitality industry. It sounds like like that just really set like a nice path for you.

Craig Cooper (05:15)
⁓ absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I think, know, who knows what would have happened, you know, just, you know, things just, you know, kind of fall in line sometimes. And that really kind of did so for me.

Anthony Codispoti (05:24)
And so the MBA that you got from University of Notre Dame, were you going to school while you were still working or you took a gap year in between?

Craig Cooper (05:33)
No,

I took time off to do the MBA.

Anthony Codispoti (05:36)
Okay, yeah, it would have been pretty tough to do both at the same time. So fell in love with the hospitality industry while at Darden. I want to talk about one of the stops that you made because because I got to double check the stats here that my team came up with. You worked at a restaurant a group called Cheddar’s and you helped to fuel checking math a 300 % growth before they got acquired.

Craig Cooper (05:48)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (06:05)
Is my math correct? Do I have the stats right?

Craig Cooper (06:06)
We

had some really, really high growth there and I kind of transitioned actually from a connection I’d had with Darden to Chetters, which is a, at the time was a company based in Irving, Texas. I think when I joined, we had

Cheddar’s, keep saying we. At the time Cheddar’s had 35 some odd company restaurants, maybe 20 franchise. They just received a major private equity investment from El Katterton. I think I was maybe the first or second higher post ⁓ investment. And really, man, it was a wild west. If I can go back to those early days.

Anthony Codispoti (06:27)
You feel part of the team still, yeah.

Craig Cooper (06:53)
I think restaurants were calling in sales on a Monday morning because we don’t have a database that is capturing that. So people would call in, what was your sales over the week? And doing that, know one time one of our IT guys had just left and someone comes to me, hey, you’re really good at that Excel stuff. You should probably run our POS system until we get someone in charge. it’s, you’re really…

doing a lot of stuff in a small growing company like that. But that’s where I started to find that I could contribute across a lot of areas in a company. I started doing a lot of work in, know, obviously, you know, the finance and analytics, but also helping with the, you know, real estate decisions, participating in the real estate committee, ⁓ helping with purchasing, supporting marketing and some of the analytics they were doing. You know, I can think back.

some of the board meetings we were doing and we would also turn pages on our slides. don’t know if anybody does that anymore, but going through the slide deck and I would have contributions in each section. you see you’re doing that and you start feeling good about, hey man, I’m really learning this business. I’m having an impact and it was ⁓ a good time for us. We had a lot of good results. We were doing high level unit volumes or our profitability was good. ⁓

But then we did hit a bit of a downturn in the middle there.

Anthony Codispoti (08:25)
What happened there?

Craig Cooper (08:26)
sure. And I think, this is, you know, kind of, ⁓ something you hear a lot is, we grew too fast. ⁓ so, so I think we did some of that and I think it, maybe not growing too fast. think we just didn’t, ⁓ plan for it and execute for the growth we wanted. ⁓ I think we, we, and you think about this, you know, we have this brand that’s been around for a bit. So they have a lot of tenure in their management, general manager teams and management teams at the restaurants.

early on and you can kind of start filtering out those people into the new restaurants you’re opening. But at some point, you’re going so fast, now you’re having to start bringing people from the outside and that’s where it really gets tough. And if your support team is not truly in place and you haven’t dialed in those processes and procedures that really make it easy for those outsiders coming in, I think you struggle. And I think we ran into that.

Anthony Codispoti (09:24)
Mm.

Craig Cooper (09:24)
We had to take a bit of a step back. And I know at one point we were, we were even looking at, you know, S1s and going public, but I think we saw that, Hey, that’s, that’s probably not going to be for us. We need to maybe step back and retrench. And we did, and we made some changes there. We staffed up a little bit more, took a new approach and then ended up, you know, we started, you know, growing again. Great story. ended up, it was funny. You talk about my first role at Darden.

it was actually Darden that came inquiring on Chetters ⁓ to acquire the company. So that was kind of ironic, it was kind of a full circle for me that we ended up selling it back. I think we did a 10 times Iwada and it was a great transaction for all of us.

Anthony Codispoti (10:09)
great. So Cheddar’s, the acquisition was actually to Darden. That’s, yeah.

Craig Cooper (10:12)
Yeah, it

was, which was pretty funny.

Anthony Codispoti (10:16)
Did you stay on post-acquisition?

Craig Cooper (10:18)
I stayed on for a little bit just to help them transition, really wasn’t in the, time wasn’t really right to make the move from Dallas to Orlando. So just kind of helped them transition and you just moved on from there.

Anthony Codispoti (10:33)
And so as you look back at that, you know, this roller coaster, right, that took place, like you’re feeling really good because you’re in these meetings, you’re contributing to all the different departments and the conversations that are going on. You guys are seeing this, you know, rocket like growth. ⁓ And then you kind of wear out over your skis a little bit. As you look back on that time, what would you have done differently from the start?

Craig Cooper (10:58)
Yeah, and I think definitely we had to build ⁓ the internal team a little bit more first. I think we had to put some of that scaffolding in place before we doing all the hiring. So we probably should have done more on the HR side.

focus more on our culture and making sure that was solid. As a finance guy, early in my career, I tended to kind of downplay all that HR culture stuff for a bit. ⁓ the more you grow, you see how crucially important that is. mean, that’s probably the most important thing. And we probably should have done more there. And I think other than that, I think, and this is a bit of a…

I don’t know controversy, I don’t know if it’s controversy, but I think as you open new restaurants, you can’t worry about profitability too quickly. And I think we did that to some extent. ⁓ You open up in these new markets and people are coming in to try your brand, come in, and I think you gotta realize that those guests, that’s the most precious thing you have as a restaurant customer.

or restaurant company is you got to make sure you’re taking care of those guests. And I think when you start trying to tighten the screws too fast, you can have an impact on those. just once you lose guests, mean, it’s expensive and time consuming to try to get them back. And I think the more you can do on the front side, even if it’s not quite as profitable, it’s better to ⁓ keep those people coming back.

Anthony Codispoti (12:36)
Give me an example of where you can tighten the screws a little bit too much too early on that might alienate guests.

Craig Cooper (12:43)
Right, I think the classic one is on your labor schedule. Well, hey, we’re not doing as much sales as we want. We should probably really pull out ⁓ a couple of servers or a cook on a shift. And when you do that, you open yourself up to be understaffed if the guests do come in that particular day. And I think you just want to provide the best service.

you can and I think, know, obviously at some point you got to right sides, but I think especially in that first year, you’ve got to make sure retaining those guests is your number one priority.

Anthony Codispoti (13:24)
Yeah. So after Cheddar, I see a few other stops here. Director of strategic initiatives at CEC Entertainment. A couple years at Wingstop, director of operations, the controller at the Cook Shack. And then for just a little over a year now, the CFO at Love Management. What, how did the door open at Love Management there?

Craig Cooper (13:51)
Sure, I would say, and this is probably true for most industries, but if you’re in long enough, the world gets pretty small. You have a lot of connections and interconnectivity between folks in the industry, and that kind of resulted to the love management team reaching out to me to kind of inquire on my interest in joining the team.

Obviously, in the DFW area, ⁓ Tim is well known. Everybody has heard of his restaurants and his group. Since he opened Lonesome Dove Western Bistro back in 2000, he’s been a top name in the area. So I was excited to be able to meet with him and talk with him about the opportunity and just was excited once meeting him about all the things we have going and just I really love the position.

since being here for a year.

Anthony Codispoti (14:43)
Okay, so tell us about this company. Tell us about the different concepts, sort of the central theme that the thread that kind of weaves them all together.

Craig Cooper (14:54)
Sure, sure I’ll do that. one of the things that I would say is the differences in some of the other places I’ve worked is, know, at Cheddar’s or Wingstop, you have a bunch of one thing. The cool thing here, kind of keep the juices flowing is that we have a lot of different things. We have, you know, high end restaurants, we have nightclubs, entertainment venues, you

retail, just a lot of different things. So that was really one draw. But if just to talk a little bit about the company and what differentiates us, and you mentioned this kind of in your opening, but it’s really those three key things, know, bold flavors. We really focus on that, doing a lot with the fire cooking. We do a lot with the…

wild game, you’ll see that running through a lot of our concepts, our red-leaf snake sausage, you you’ll see that in ⁓ many of our locations. So that’s kind of the cornerstone foundation that has carried forward from those early days at Lonesome Dove Western Bistro. But then hospitality-wise, we want to make sure we’re elevating it there, making sure we’re adding those extra touch points and making guests feel special.

And then one of things I’ve been most impressed with is just our great atmospheres in each of our locations. And just giving a little bit of anecdotal evidence here. I think when you’re good at stuff, things tend to transcend kind of age groups. know just thinking with my kids, they’re always, hey, when can we go out to dinner? And my oldest daughter, Grace, she wanted to have her 18th birthday at Jemele, so she could.

take pictures in the garden with her and her friends and they can all do the all the pictures and whatnot or you know my son wanted me hey can you get that playlist from Tana Hills or you know my youngest daughter Margaret wanting to go to you know woodshed to do the s’mores and listen to music and it’s just you know really cool atmospheres and really cool things that we have going on and I think that’s one of the things that Tim is really good at is you know not kind of staying put but always looking

Hey, what more can we provide the guests and be on that kind of cutting edge of hospitality and service?

Anthony Codispoti (17:14)
So from a creativity standpoint, I could see it being a lot of fun to have these different concepts, right? And do them and do them really well. From an operational and finance point of view, is there part of you that kind of wishes that you would pick a concept and like rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, because it’s like, hey, once we’ve got it figured out, we know what the footprint is, the menu, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. How do you approach that? What’s your thought process there?

Craig Cooper (17:43)
Well, sure, it does add extra complexity to deal with all the different concepts. ⁓ But I would say we are looking to grow ⁓ in one of our brands, especially ⁓ Paloma Suerte, where I’m ⁓ sitting upstairs in right now. It’s our Tex-Mex concept.

It’s one where we, know, the unit volumes are awesome. The four wall profitability is just bananas. It’s so good. We have a couple more of these in the pipeline. We have one coming on in San Marcos. One we have set for Arkansas, which will be a new state for us. So we’re excited about that. So, yeah, to your point, yeah, I think that does get me excited to be able to scale and grow. And we think that’s going to be a good vehicle for us. I think, you know, we’re kind of happy to

keep growing it, you know, internally, but ideally we would find a great partner that could help us with that and really scale it going forward.

Anthony Codispoti (18:42)
not so much like a franchise setup, but more of like a partnership where folks are maybe already got a presence in some of these different markets that would make it easier from a logistical standpoint to establish there.

Craig Cooper (18:55)
Yeah, maybe even whether that’s you know someone You know coming in with an investment and helping you know that it has some experience growing brands again Not just looking for someone with a checkbook, but someone that can bring You know true experience in growing growing companies

Anthony Codispoti (19:03)
Yeah.

What is it about Paloma Suerte that you think is like so attractive to people? You’re like, ⁓ man, the profitability is just, man, we’ve got it nailed.

Craig Cooper (19:20)
Well, ⁓ just going back to our core, the food is just amazing. we do birria. Birria tacos are one of our key things that we do, and they’re just out of this world. ⁓ But I can say that on all our concepts, truly. But the food is really good. The atmosphere is great.

It’s just a place people want to come and have a good time. And I think when you can do that and you can do that in an elevated, somewhat elevated atmosphere, it’s just the recipe for success.

Anthony Codispoti (19:52)
Yeah, I’m checking out the website here. ⁓ Paloma Suerte, ftx.com for folks. And some of the drinks here, they just look out of this world. And the ambiance is really cool. Like it, like I hear you say like upscale, but it’s not like a suit and tie. It’s still like, you know, super casual, but it’s a nice place, right? ⁓ Yeah. And I’m guessing these margaritas are pretty tasty, too. They got me salivating now.

Craig Cooper (20:11)
No, no, no, like a suit and tie. Yeah.

⁓ absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (20:23)
⁓ Well, that’s fun. so ⁓ talk to me, let’s see, what do we want to go next? Let’s talk about the festivals, the large scale dining events that you guys do. It’s a big part of Chef Tim Love’s brand. Tell me about sort of the different operational or financial considerations that come into play with this side of the business.

Craig Cooper (20:50)
Sure, that’s one of the aspects of the business that was kind of new to me, the catering and the festivals. But I think that really allows us, or especially Tim, to connect with a lot of these different audiences. We do some of the bigger festivals across the country, whether it’s Bonnaroo or Hinterland or ACL here in Texas, really allows us to get our name out and boost awareness.

But again, getting all that done takes a lot of effort. We have a great team that runs our catering company, and they ⁓ do a lot of work moving equipment around and getting food to these different places. So there is some complexity that does go along with that. But Jason and his team do a great job there.

Anthony Codispoti (21:40)
And so the catering, the festival side of the business, is this available for any of the brands that are under the Chef Tim Love umbrella, or are there just certain brands that are set up to do this?

Craig Cooper (21:56)
Yeah, so with the catering company, again, we have different menu options that you can choose from. ⁓ But again, we have ⁓ private events in all of our locations ⁓ that you can come in and do that as well.

Anthony Codispoti (22:11)
Okay. Talk to us about some of the other cool stuff that you guys are working on because I know just, ⁓ you know, little chat pre interview here, you were pretty jazzed about some of the projects you got.

Craig Cooper (22:23)
Yeah, I’ll just spend a minute and talk about some of our our newer concepts in something we have going Kind of our most recent thing that we did maybe almost not quite a year ago now is our Stewart’s Croquet Club. It’s kind of upscale ⁓ bar and croquet field really fun venue ⁓

fun. mean we have a big croquet lawn that people can rent out and have big parties there and ⁓ very elevated drinks and you know martini carts. It’s really cool doing good things for us. And then upcoming probably in the next probably month or so we’ll be opening an opening a new restaurant in Marrakech which will be a mediterranean themed ⁓ upscale restaurant.

that we’re really proud of. I know the team is working hard right now to get that ready for opening, ⁓ but really more of a kind of a health focus for us with that one. ⁓ So looking forward to seeing that. ⁓ Leaning more towards the Greek side right now.

Anthony Codispoti (23:26)
So Mediterranean could mean lots of things, could mean Italian, mean Greek, Turkish, kind of like… Okay.

Yeah. And tell us the name of that place again. I didn’t quite catch it. Meraki. Okay. That should be a fun place. And this is going to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well. This is kind of where you guys are strongest right now. Yeah. The Croquet Club. I got to hear more about that. Obviously I’m familiar with the sport of croquet, but I’ve never heard it be like a focal point for a restaurant.

Craig Cooper (23:38)
It is, it is going to be in Fort Worth, yes.

Anthony Codispoti (23:55)
What was behind the decision here? It’s kind of fun and creative.

Craig Cooper (23:59)
And I think that just goes back to, you know, Tim’s creativity. He’s always coming up with these cool ideas and things that, you know, will be fun for our guests and people that really follow our brands. ⁓

But it’s great, you can go out and, you know, I’ve never played croquet before, but you know, I’ve spent several afternoons out there, you know, with the cocktail and, you know, with the mallets and it’s it’s a blast.

Anthony Codispoti (24:23)
⁓ So several years ago, friends of mine were having a party in a park nearby and there was the game of croquet, which I like kind of goofed around with as a little kid. But these guys actually knew what they were doing and they were competitive. And I was surprised. I’m an OK athlete, but I was surprised just how terrible I was at this game. Were you kind of behind the curve too, or did you take naturally to it?

Craig Cooper (24:46)
I don’t know about naturally to it, again, I’ve played some golf in my time, so I kind of use that a little bit. So I think that that was maybe a gave me some advantage there.

Anthony Codispoti (24:56)
Yeah, yeah, I’m a bit of a stranger to the club sports. So, okay, so tell us about some of the fun stuff that you’re working on, maybe more behind the scenes, like from an operational or finance point of view.

Craig Cooper (24:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that I wanted to focus on when I joined the company is just making sure that our finance and accounting kind of could match the level that we’re producing in operations. Obviously, we’re a high level operations company doing great things. I just want to make sure we have the support and the systems behind the scenes that

that can support those great restaurants. And really the last year has been focusing on that, making sure we’re improving our process, ⁓ being more efficient and the like.

Anthony Codispoti (25:51)
Are you guys layering in AI to anything that you’re doing?

Craig Cooper (25:56)
Yeah, that’s the great buzzword. You hear that everywhere you go. I was just in a conference yesterday and that was a breakout session. yeah, AI, I don’t know that we are fully on board with that, but I think that is something that, I think if people don’t adopt it, they’re going to get left behind. I think it’s such a powerful tool. ⁓

In finance, I’m really trying to bring that in, especially to some of the analytics and modeling that we do in trying to leverage that more to help us build and report. But I think that as you say, there’s, you know, unlimited ways you can bring that into a hospitality company. But I think it’s just understanding, you know, where those immediate parts are that you could implement some AI in to help you.

Again, I think everybody’s going to have to adopt it to some extent just because it’s such a game changer.

Anthony Codispoti (26:58)
Do you think looking forward, Craig, that you guys will ultimately take a chat GPT or a Claude or a Gemini and use the LLM as it is? Or would you look to use more third party applications that have the AI technologies already integrated into them?

Craig Cooper (27:20)
You know, I’m not sure which path we would go down. I can see kind of use cases for each, but I think we’re really, really kind of early stage, really trying to understand, you know, for a restaurant company, where does that make sense? And I think that’s, you the restaurant tech stack, it’s always evolving. And I could go out and I could…

Anthony Codispoti (27:35)
still investigating. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Cooper (27:46)
There’s so many great technology companies in the restaurant space these days, but you can’t bring them all in. You got to pick and choose the ones that are the most beneficial to you at any given time.

Anthony Codispoti (27:56)
And

you want to make sure that something is a little bit more fully fleshed out, right? Not just like the shiny object that just came out last week. You want to make sure it’s a little bit more vetted.

Craig Cooper (28:00)
That’s right.

Yeah, being on the kind of that bleeding edge doesn’t really help us too much. We’re going to make sure it’s kind of proven out a bit. But that’s not to say, again, like say we’re not experimenting with, hey, how can AI help us build these financial models or help us do this analysis? I mean, really trying to understand kind of the full capabilities and scope that can help us with.

Anthony Codispoti (28:29)
You know, as a finance person, you get to see obviously all the data. I wonder if you’re spotting any interesting consumer trends.

Craig Cooper (28:38)
Yeah, and that’s something we do try to track and monitor. ⁓ Usually, ⁓ when I do that, I keep this ⁓ big spreadsheet of all these economic indicators. I’m trying to understand what that’s saying about how can I apply that to our current. But you do see a lot of, ⁓ especially with the traffic that’s coming in, inferring that back to what’s going on with the economy.

Again, we are relatively ⁓ obviously focused in Texas primarily. So it’s tough to make a macro assumption about what’s going on in our ⁓ neck of the woods. But you do look at your traffic and compare it some of those macro trends and just to see how you’re comparing with that.

Anthony Codispoti (29:29)
Okay. ⁓ Let’s talk about COVID. Let’s, let’s let’s pick it a scab. Because, you know, man, the hospitality industry really got knocked around, especially during that time. When ⁓ and where were you during COVID? Which stop were you in?

Craig Cooper (29:48)
I was fortunate enough to be at Wingstop during COVID, which that was just a boon for them. know, with the ⁓ takeaway, yeah, that was a great time. They did a lot of growth, helped a lot of brand partners.

Anthony Codispoti (29:49)
So do.

they had big carry out business. Yeah.

Craig Cooper (30:04)
grow during that time. generally, yes, that was a very down time for the industry as a whole. I was fortunate enough to be a part of a great company, Wingstop, that had some success during that time.

Anthony Codispoti (30:17)
Well, and still, you know, while COVID was going on the tail end of the 2021, you took a new role controller at the cook shack. And so, you know, maybe it was a little bit different in Texas, maybe things were a little bit more fully open by then, what was your experience with that company going through the tail end of

Craig Cooper (30:37)
Yeah, I think we probably were a little bit, we opened sooner than a lot of the rest of the country. I think by the time I joined there, we were again opening some restaurants and so really weren’t too impacted by that.

Anthony Codispoti (30:50)
Yeah. So, you know, competitive space, the restaurant industry is ⁓ Dallas Fort Worth, a lot of options. But you guys are doing well. What what’s different about your approach to growth and profitability? And how do you measure success beyond just the bottom line, Craig?

Craig Cooper (31:10)
Yeah, I think it goes back to ⁓ wanting to make sure your guests are taken care of and making sure we’re ⁓ providing ⁓ the good hospitality, we’re keeping our buildings in shape and making sure we have clean, we’re friendly. It just goes back to those touch points and making sure we’re ⁓

provide a great experience for our guests that choose to spend their money with us.

Anthony Codispoti (31:41)
I mean, you’re the CFO, but you’ve worn so many different hats, you know, in some of these different stops along the way. You know, now that you’re, you know, in sort of the top of the finance position, Craig, do you find yourself being a bit more silo focusing more specifically on what’s going on from a finance perspective? Or do you find that since you’ve got this great experience in operations, and you know, you’ve touched in tech and marketing before, that you’ve still got your fingers kind of spread throughout?

the entire company.

Craig Cooper (32:12)
Well, I certainly spent the last year, been really focused on the finance side because I think we had to add some work to do there to get up to where I think we should be. But I think you probably would talk to my peers and they probably get tired of me, poking into and ask questions about, you know, about their, their teams and whatnot. But yeah, I can’t hardly keep from it. I’m always interested in all those areas, whether it be marketing or operations, just to make sure I have a pulse on.

on what’s going on.

Anthony Codispoti (32:40)
And I think it’s, you from my perspective anyways, it just seems like such a natural move, right? You know, I think sometimes people from the outside who haven’t kind of been behind the scenes in a company, they think, finance, they’re just running the numbers and, you know, making sure there’s money in the bank account. But you have so much insight on what’s working from an operational perspective that it’s just natural for you to be able to support all the different parts of the company.

Craig Cooper (33:07)
Yeah, I think that support is key.

Anthony Codispoti (33:12)
Yeah. OK, so I’m going to ask you to pick from your favorite kids, which is your favorite restaurant and then which is your favorite menu item?

Craig Cooper (33:27)
yeah, that’s a tough one. Now you’re really putting me on the spot here. ⁓ I probably would say, ⁓ favorite item probably is the birria tacos here at Paloma Suerte. ⁓ but favorite restaurant, I gotta, I gotta go with old school and I gotta say, you know, Lonesome Dove Western Bistro. That’s, where it all started for us.

Anthony Codispoti (33:28)
I’m putting you on the spot. Uh-huh.

Craig Cooper (33:45)
Great experience there. So got to go with that

Anthony Codispoti (33:49)
What advice would you give to others in the world of finance that are looking to advance their career in the hospitality industry?

Craig Cooper (34:00)
Sure, and I’d probably say if it’s, know, advice towards maybe the people younger in their careers, you know, just starting out, I would just maybe say slow down just a bit. You know, where you can really add value is not just, you know, producing a report or handing something in. It’s thinking about

the second or third question that’s going to come from that analysis. I think putting that extra work in and thinking beyond just what is requested of you, that’s how you get ahead is putting in that extra work and answering those, thinking about what questions the CEO or the CFO is going to have for you and really trying to follow up and anticipate that.

Anthony Codispoti (34:44)
No, good. ⁓ Okay, so finance guy, marketing experience, you guys open a new location. What is been the best growth levers for you in terms of driving new foot traffic to that place?

Craig Cooper (35:01)
I would say, you know, asking like for specifically for a location or kind of what do you.

Anthony Codispoti (35:08)
Yeah, when you guys open a new restaurant, what’s been your most effective approach to getting, you know, butts in the seats, feet in the door?

Craig Cooper (35:18)
Yeah, I think we take the approach here and we do a lot of a lot of social media that’s key these days, obviously. ⁓ lot of word of mouth and just the the brand strength across our system. think anytime we get the word out that Tim’s opening a new spot that automatically brings a lot of a lot of eyes to the location. So we’re fortunate.

that we can piggyback off of his previous success. Absolutely. And I think I maybe underestimated that a bit before coming on, but just kind of seeing that in practice, you really kind of step back and say, well, that is a powerful, powerful tool.

Anthony Codispoti (35:44)
You’ve already got that brand name recognition from Chef Tim. Yeah.

Well, you know, and that helps me understand even more the answer to an earlier question I asked, which is why don’t you guys just rinse and repeat on the same concept? Well, because, you know, if you’re in the same metro area with all of your, with most of your concepts, right, in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, you know, you can’t have 40 of the same concept everywhere, right? So you’ve got to be creative. You got to have more locations. And, you know, that

Craig Cooper (36:12)
That’s right, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (36:25)
that common thread is the strength of Chef Tim’s name. Like people are like, ⁓ Tim Love, like, yeah, we got to go check it out because we know that he does good stuff.

Craig Cooper (36:28)
That’s right.

Anthony Codispoti (36:37)
⁓ Okay, so if you had to recommend

Craig Cooper (36:38)
Thank

Anthony Codispoti (36:39)
a resource to our audience, a book, a podcast, a course, something that’s been helpful to you in either your career or your personal development that others might find interesting, what would that be?

Craig Cooper (36:52)
Sure, I think really two come to mind. ⁓ One of them, since I’m in the hospitality space, I’m kind of obligated to say this, but ⁓ Setting the Table by Danny Meyer, ⁓ great book, probably one I go to, and I think I listen to more books these days than read them, but I probably will listen to that at least once a year. I just think he has so much great insight on the hospitality industry with his

get guest folk or team focus get in guest focus. You know, core values is a key component of what you see in that book. Just a great resource for anybody that hasn’t had a chance to go through that. And I say beyond that, I would say pretty much anything by Patrick Lincione in his table group. Love his books, all the fable ⁓ intros and whatnot.

But the one I use quite a bit is that ideal team player, where you talk about the concept of humble, hungry, and smart ⁓ when you’re looking for employees. I think that’s a very powerful message. And one that I’ve used is I’ve hired throughout my career.

Anthony Codispoti (38:10)
Is that something that you present to other members of your team like, Hey, I think this would be a good book for you to consume. Or this is just both of these books or things that you come back to on a regular basis, just to re-inspire you on the core values.

Craig Cooper (38:27)
I think it’s some of both. Obviously, I do go back to both of those, but do highly recommend those to people on my team as well.

Anthony Codispoti (38:34)
No. You know, Craig, in my experience, ⁓ growth often comes from overcoming big challenges in our lives. I’d be curious to hear about a significant challenge that you’ve overcome in your life and what you’ve learned going through that.

Craig Cooper (38:42)
Sure.

Sure, sure. And that’s a tough one. know, people don’t like talking about a lot of those personal challenges a lot. And I think first I would say that, you know, challenges are real personal. You know, what might be hard for me is maybe easier for you or even even

within the same person, you know, what might be easier for now might be very difficult, you know, a couple of years ago. I think challenges are very personal and everybody has them. So you have to kind of understand that people are, what people are going through and empathize with that. think personally, I think the biggest thing that we probably went through was, I guess, a little over 18 years ago when my oldest daughter was born. She was born with a ⁓ severe heart defect.

And as you can imagine, that just ⁓ kind of throws your whole world for a loop. mean, lots of emotions, you what are we supposed to do? I think, you know, thinking back to the day, I was pulling through the line to go pick up my wife and daughter. And then the doctor said, hey, I want to run one more test before I let you get out of here. And they ran the test. And next thing you know, we’re going to another hospital and we’re talking heart surgeries. And it’s really…

really crazy stuff, but I think as long as you have a good framework, you can help work through those challenges.

Anthony Codispoti (40:22)
What kind of framework are we talking about?

Craig Cooper (40:25)
Well, sure. And I think, you know, couple aspects to that. And I think the first thing you really have to do is ⁓ stop and assess what’s going on. And really, I think you got to make your world small. I think if you you if you’re thinking too too macro, you just that’s you tend to spiral. If you start thinking about all the ramifications that could happen and whatnot. I think you really got to close down and think, hey, what can I control? What can decisions can I make?

now that will help us go forward, whether it’s, Hey, I gotta, you know, get in touch with this doctor or I gotta find out, uh, you know, what the schedule is. Just, you know, what are those quick wins you can have to make sure you’re feeling like you’re progressing in assisting with that? Uh, and think that’s crucially important, you know, with any kind of problem that you’re dealing with. And I think that really leads to maybe a learning aspect. Uh, obviously they don’t teach a lot of

Heart Anatomy and B-School, right? don’t, you know, in those first conversations with doctors, you your head is spinning and you don’t know what’s going on, but you have to educate yourself and you have to get up to speed. So you have to do a lot of reading, learning what’s going on. You know, I think I always had the moniker Dr. Google for a bit during that, but just because I was, you know, reading all these research papers, but just try and get up to speed because I think it’s important.

One, you want to be able to have intelligent conversations, right? Because yes, I’m never going to be a doctor, but hey, I can do some critical thinking. And I am decent at problem solving. some of those ⁓ echocardiograms, a lot of the output looks like statistics. And hey, I can kind of get my mind wrapped around that a little bit. I think it just, if you can learn really what’s at the heart of that problem, it helps you to get through it and at least

have good conversations on it. But then I think really beyond that is maybe some prioritization. ⁓ You know, it’s never really just one thing, right? Because yes, ⁓ dealing with our daughter’s heart was our main focus. We had to turn the burners down on all the other things going on and we had to focus on that. But that’s not to say that you can just ignore everything else, right?

I mean, we had a young son that he doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he has needs and you got to make sure you’re still there for him. And yes, work is being, you know, they’re taking care of you and supporting you, but you can’t just, you know, shut completely shut the door off. So you got to have, you got to make sure you’re at least, you know, touching base and having some, you know, minimal contacts on those other things that are going on. Are you going to end up with a, another problem down the road? So it’s prioritizing and then it’s just.

Kind of reassessing it as you go and as you check those things off the list Just seeing where you are in Reassessing and that’s what really helped me get through and kind of to lead through that that that crisis and You know, say that that first, you know surgery we had that was even when we first found out that was you know a tough one and that was Had really set us back and you know, but as you move through and

not that the surgeries are any less meaningful, but you’re prepared for that and you get through it a lot easier. then obviously daughter’s doing great now. She’s getting ready to graduate in the spring and it turned out well for us. So that was a great win for us.

Anthony Codispoti (44:08)
So from the time that you found out about your daughter’s heart condition to when, call it the last surgery, or when you knew that, okay, this is fully resolved for okay now, what’s that timeframe?

Craig Cooper (44:21)
I think the book of the surges happened early on, and by the time she’s through elementary school, you’ve had, I think it was a series of three surges, and you’ve made it through that, and it just…

dealing with with maintenance stuff after that. So that first kind very young years through life is when the bulk of that hit.

Anthony Codispoti (44:47)
You know, and as a parent, you know, I’ve got two boys. ⁓ And, you know, when they’re really sick, man, you know, my heart is, you know, just on fire. But, you know, my stomach is in knots. But never anything like what you’ve been through, you know, is apparent, like you want to take all that pain away from the kids, especially like as a newborn, like seeing them go in to have open heart surgery, I just have to imagine that, you know, what does that do to you?

Craig Cooper (45:17)
Yeah, I mean, just, yeah, it’s the very emotional and humbling in trying to get through that. And, but you know, you, you’ve got to get through it. It’s not a choice. You just got to do what you do to take the next step forward.

be there in support and in your love as much as you can.

Anthony Codispoti (45:38)
You know, and you just went through that ⁓ framework that you used, which was super helpful. ⁓ You know, and for folks listening, I think this is going to be a point where a lot of them rewind, go back and listen to that framework again, because there was lots of wisdom there. But was this a framework that you had already kind of in your mind from what you had done professionally, or was it a framework that you kind of developed as you went along through your daughter’s condition?

Craig Cooper (46:06)
I think it was more of as you went along, you kind of develop it. Again, I’ve also never had challenges, but nothing to that extreme. That’s challenges, you know, turned up to 11, right? So it was kind of trying to learn through that.

Anthony Codispoti (46:26)
Yeah. You know, I’ve talked with a number of other parents on this show that either themselves or, you know, close relative, usually a child has a severe health condition. And they talk about one of the elements that you spoke about, Craig, which is like educating yourself, really learning as much as you can about the condition in part because at least from their experiences, they felt that if they didn’t

have that knowledge and didn’t have the capacity to ask those really thought provoking questions, they don’t know that the outcome would have been as good because sort of the way medicine works in a lot of cases is things are so siloed off, right? And it’s like you get passed from this specialist to this specialist to this specialist. Did you feel like any of that was going on where if you weren’t sort of being the quarterback for her care that things were going to slip through the cracks?

Craig Cooper (47:25)
Well, I would say, you first of all, we had a lot of amazing doctors and nurses that, you know, helped us through the whole thing. But I think, yes, I think if you’re not being proactive on your care, think you’re ⁓ not doing yourself justice. I think you have to advocate for yourself and make sure you are asking ⁓ those questions. Because at the end of the day, you know,

the doctors and nurses, they’re just people, they’re not perfect. And you want to make sure you feel good and have confidence in what they’re doing.

Anthony Codispoti (48:00)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So Craig, let me ask you this. What is your superpower?

Craig Cooper (48:07)
Well, you know, we watched a lot of Marvel movies back in the day, but, you know, I don’t know that I claim any superpowers. I think I would say if I had one characteristic that’s kind of helped me through my career is just plain and simple, hard work. I’ve never really been naturally talented at anything, anything that I’ve been good at. I’ve had to really

grind and work hard for. And I think that’s just really what I’ve leaned into over the course of my career, knowing that, hey, I’m willing to work and I’m going to work consistently and hard every day and I’m probably going to outwork you. And at end of the day, I’m going to be in a better place just because I’m willing to put in the hard effort and grind it out.

Anthony Codispoti (48:56)
I like that. I want to go back to the restaurants and because you alluded to this earlier, Craig, the importance of the team that you’ve got, right? Like every great company has a great team behind it. How do you guys approach, especially in a high turnover industry, you know, retaining and recruiting good staff?

Craig Cooper (49:23)
Yeah, and again, staff is everything for a hospitality company.

seen a restaurant that’s had problems or if they’re not staffed, they tend to have problems. So you got to make sure you’re getting that right. And I think we want to work and make sure we’re attracting the right type of talent. And I think that goes back to our kind of core values and really going back to that, you know, then she only booked it that I talked about making sure that these people are hungry, either humble and smart and

know, good fits for the company.

Anthony Codispoti (50:03)
Yeah. Any I know that you’re not probably directly involved with a hiring but in your past, there any good interview questions that you like to ask that you feel like they help to flesh out something in particular to to know if this person is going to be a good fit.

Craig Cooper (50:19)
I don’t know how good it is. I don’t claim to be the best interviewer ever. ⁓ One of my favorite ones to talk through is talking about someone’s success, but then what roadblocks that they ran into and how they overcame that. And I think that’s important because it helps you get an understanding of their thought process and how they’re approaching problems because

you know, rarely, you know, successes, they’re just successes, right? You’ve had to go through, you know, a bumpy road and then you succeed. It’s not just a straight, I did this and it worked.

Anthony Codispoti (51:01)
I’m glad that you highlighted that because, you these are the favorite types of questions I like to ask on the show. Whether it’s, you know, with your current employer, Chef Tim Love, Love Management, or a previous stop along the way, can you highlight a particular ⁓ work challenge that you had to navigate and how it has influenced your approach to business going forward?

Craig Cooper (51:26)
And I think probably the biggest challenge is growth and that goes back to that cheddar story that we talked about a little bit earlier. you know growing a company is extremely difficult and just making sure that you have everything in place to grow that.

You know, there’s a lot of work that goes into that. You got to make sure you have the right team in place. You have a solid plan. ⁓ And then it’s set up for people to ⁓ execute easily. think if you have a process that’s convoluted or not well thought out, I think you just end up in a bad spot. So I think it’s key of. ⁓

when you’re trying to grow is make sure that that’s as easy as possible for the people you’re bringing in to that environment.

Anthony Codispoti (52:29)
How about some daily practices that Craig either help you get your day started or keep you on track as you’re going?

Craig Cooper (52:36)
I would say one thing that’s really benefited me probably the last couple of years is really just adopting really a morning routine and just trying to be more active ⁓ during the week. really trying to get up early, do some exercise has been a great help for me. So I would encourage anybody to try to get on that standard routine and just move more, I think is good.

Anthony Codispoti (53:04)
So we talked a little bit about some of what the future of the company might hold, right? You’re gonna take this one concept and you wanna produce more of them. Anything else that we haven’t given voice to yet?

Craig Cooper (53:11)
Right.

Just from a growth perspective, think that Paloma Suerte is our focus. again, that’s not to say that we don’t want to grow other concepts as well. I think there’s definitely room for more lonesome doves out there in the right markets. ⁓ Same with some of our other concepts as well. So I think a ⁓ lot of growth potential here as a company.

Anthony Codispoti (53:45)
Yeah. Any exciting industry trends that you’re keeping an eye on?

Craig Cooper (53:51)
Well, I think we touched on the one, the AI, think that’s the one that’s most exciting. Everybody’s talking about that. It’s got a lot of potential. Other than that, hospitality is pretty boring. It’s pretty, you mean, you got to take care of your guests, you got to give them good food, and make sure they have a good environment. And if you’re doing those things, I think that’s kind of timeless throughout hospitality, that if you’re doing those, you can succeed.

Anthony Codispoti (53:54)
Yeah, everybody’s talking about that. ⁓

Okay, what’s your favorite thing to do outside of work, Craig?

Craig Cooper (54:23)
yeah, that’s funny. We were talking about that just, my wife and I were talking about that just the other day is that, you for so many years we have, you know, three kids, you know, and for so long that’s kind of been our weekend is, you know, going to soccer games or dance recitals or dance competitions. And now, know, our youngest is goes into high school next year. So we’re almost at the end of, you know, that phase of our life. you know, how will we fill our time? So.

I don’t know what that will be. Maybe I’ll get the golf clubs out of the closet and dust those off or something. Yeah, it could be that too. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (54:57)
I thought you might tell me croquet.

All right, I just got one more question for you today, Craig. But before

I ask it, I want to do three quick things for the audience. First of all, got to point you to their website, ChefTimLove.com. You can find all the concepts listed there, branch you off to their individual websites. You can check out pictures, menus, ⁓ pictures of the drinks that looked amazing. So ChefTimLove.com. And we’ll include a link to Craig’s LinkedIn profile on the show notes, but you can find him by searching for Craig Cooper and Love Management.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show today, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way towards helping others discover our show. thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can get your restaurant employees access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds that as paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your company’s net profits. Real gains that can change how a business is valued. Contact us today at adbackbenefits.com.

So last question for you, Craig, a year from now, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?

Craig Cooper (56:03)
good.

Yeah, again, hope to be celebrating continued growth of the company from a professional standpoint and then just hopefully we’ll have another great year, you know, family-wise that the kids are doing great and healthy and succeeding.

Anthony Codispoti (56:28)
All right, Craig Cooper from Love Management, Chef Tim Love’s umbrella. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Craig Cooper (56:38)
Anthony, thanks for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (56:40)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.