Pivots are breeding grounds for experimentation. As they shifted from the traditional restaurant paradigm to food takeout service, John Forcier and Jerrett Young of Equal Parts found themselves becoming dishwashers, delivery drivers, and prep cooks at various times. This is on top of the Gemba walks that they are already making so that they can really see what needs to be done around the kitchen. In this second part of their interview with Melanie Parish, John and Jerrett share how this experience of experimentation has given them a fresh eye for how work was done in the restaurant and find ways to optimize processes and offers. They also share how they have been using the concepts from Melanie’s book, The Experimental Leader, which was given to them by Melanie herself during the height of the pandemic.  

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Listen to the podcast here

How To Transition Into The Food Takeout Service With John Forcier And Jerrett Young, Part 2 

I want to tell you a little story. It was early in the pandemic my daughter is a chef at a restaurant called The French. They were lovely when they had to lay everyone off because of the pandemic. I went to pick up a staff meal for her. Because of an allergy she had, she couldn’t go in. When I was there, I dropped off two of my books, The Experimental Leader: Be a New Kind of Boss to Cultivate an Organization of Innovators for their CEO and executive chef. As 2021 has progressed, I’ve watched them experimenting extraordinarily well. 

They’ve tried things. Some of the things have worked better than others, but I kept having this feeling that I wanted to bring them onto my show. I wanted to talk to them about what it’s been like this year from a business point of view and from a food point of view. I wanted them on together and I wanted to have a dialogue. It’s a little different for me. I wanted to try something new on my show. I brought them on to talk about that. I’m so excited about having them. I can’t wait to hear how they’ve been experimenting. 

I’m here with Jerrett Young and John Forcier of Equal Parts. Jerrett Young has devoted his education and his career to the hospitality industry. He owns his own consulting company and an investor in the long-standing Toronto staffing agency, The Butler Did It, where he continues to search for ways to combat the labor, diversity and inclusion obstacles that face our industry. In a fifteen-year-old tenure at acclaimed Oliver & Bonacini as the Vice President of Operations, Jerrett and his business partner Jason Cassis founded Equal Parts Hospitality, a restaurant group and hospitality management company in Hamilton. They own and operate 2 golf courses, 3 restaurants and work with a variety of other partners. He enjoys home cooking, exercising and exploring the Niagara area with his husband, Henry. 

John Forcier is the Director of Culinary Operations for Equal Parts Hospitality. He’s responsible for shaping the culinary voice for all the properties. John also spends a lot of time working closely with local producers and purveyors to ensure the restaurants are getting the highest-quality ingredients possible. After graduating from George Brown College for Culinary Management, John worked in several restaurants before spending almost five years at Oliver & Bonacini’s Canoe Restaurant. While Sous Chef at Canoe, he began to realize the importance of not only the finished dish, but also who produces and prepares the food that goes onto that plate. John lives in Downtown Hamilton with his wife and son. I’m so excited to have these guys on my show. 

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I get caught up a little bit in language where strong women get called the B word or the C word. It’s similar to this in that they’re either nice or they’re a bitch. That plays into leadership a lot as well. I don’t know if you have any answers for that, but you have women leaders. How do you guys work with that in your environment? 

I can’t speak for Chef John. The words that we describe women leadership are seen in a negative light, but they would be the same words to describe male leaders as the cream of the crop. I try to stay away from those words. I’ve also made sure that women leaders also can become a little apologetic if they have to be strong, assertive and define rules and framework. I try to be supportive when those things come up and wouldn’t ever turn around to a woman leader and say, “You’ve got to stop being a bitch.” That is reinforcing the stereotypes. I don’t know if that answers your question at all. 

It’s in the air and it’s in the water in how you grapple with it. It’s interesting to hear about how leaders grapple with these things. 

I have heard people say, “That leader needs to grow a pair or stop being a pussy.” I have to now say, “When you look at the anatomy, I’m sorry but testicles are not strong. They’re not at all.” The female anatomy is super strong. They give birth. Thank you for the compliment. What you’re saying is misogynistic. We’re used to not like males using the female as weak through phrasing and communication. We have it wrong. 

I’d love to hear you weigh in because I know the front of the house tends to have more women in it. As the executive chef, you’re leading the back of the house. How do you think about women in leadership and developing that? I know you have a lot of cooks who are women. 

I think back on three restaurants in years and all of the cooks who have come, stayed, gone and whatever. If I thought of the ones that I remember, I would probably think of more women than I do men. One of the best cooks in the company is leaving us. She’s terrific. I’m super sad to lose her. A kitchen is a weird place. Myself or any other male chef, generalizing, but if I swear or get mad at someone, if I lose my temper, I’m a tough son of a bitch or I’m an asshole but I’m good. It’s like, “He’s an asshole but he’s great.” 

You’re holding a standard. 

Whereas I have seen this and I wasn’t able to correct it in the minds of employees, but that’s not the point. The exact same standards are upheld by a woman. The exact same words are said by a woman. The exact same demands are made by a woman and she’s a bitch. The exact same thing is happening, but it’s coming out of my mouth or a different man’s mouth than a woman’s mouth. That is this strange societal thing to overcome. 

One of the places I see this a lot is in new leaders. Almost every new leader I’ve ever talked to, they feel the strain. Especially from within, they might have been a great individual contributor, and this is in tech, kitchens or anywhere, and then they get promoted and they have no idea what they’re doing. They’ve never been trained in leadership. They’re starting to try to find their way and they don’t know what they’re doing. I do think that women suffer more in that environment because it’s somehow a failure of their character that they don’t know, whereas men have a potential. There’s some interesting space there to explore in the promotion of women not just in kitchens, but in every field. 

Jerrett and I talked about this. You’re right, people get promoted and they don’t know what they’re doing. I can use myself as an example. I was a good cook and then I became a junior sous chef. I went to work at the same time. I wore the same uniform. I worked in the same space and cooked the same food, but what I was doing on Tuesday was no longer good enough on Wednesday. I was told that in no uncertain terms. Don’t get me wrong. I was never told where that gap is. I’ll never forget there was a light bulb that needed changing. It wasn’t one day to the next. Before I was promoted, someone else changed the light bulbs and then I was promoted. I was getting yelled at because the light bulbs weren’t changed, but no one told me, “You’re a sous chef now. Light bulbs are your job.” 

The people who are in line for promotions, we see the potential in, hold their values and all of that, they need more real training. Just because you were the best cook, you can slice chives the best or cook the best steak or you’re the fastest does not necessarily qualify you to lead people. The people that we identify who we think do have that potential, myself and everyone needs to do a better job of saying, “This is what we have in mind for you. These are some of the things you got to work on. Don’t stop cooking great steaks. Please don’t stop that. This is what else do you need to work on.” That’s when you get into the feelings, emotions and emotional intelligence, which no one ever trained you for. Why don’t we? 

I have a client who’s an accountant and she has an MBA. She spent one year working in accounting and then got promoted into leadership. She’ll spend the rest of her career working in a field she never learned. She still can do accounting, but she hardly ever touches it anymore because she got promoted in maybe two years. It’s a short period of time. I want to bring up impostor syndrome. I know we talked about it a little bit before this call. I was curious about some of the thoughts that you might have, John, about being a creative and when you might suffer from impostor syndrome. Jerrett, feel free to jump in as you think about that. What do you notice about impostor syndrome? You don’t have to share your deepest, darkest secrets. What do you see in general as a chef? 

I’ll speak specifically for myself and then a bit generally for some of the cooks I’ve worked with. Always, but especially now in this age of social media, in this age of Instagram, I can open my phone and see one of the top five chefs in the entire world and what they’re doing, what they’re cooking, how they’re plating it and the resources they have and think to myself, “What am I doing?” I think that I’m a good leader. I wouldn’t say I’m a great leader. I’m still learning. I’m a good cook. I’m not a great cook. I’m still learning. When you start comparing yourselves to these people at the absolute pinnacle of their profession, you start feeling down on yourself. The resources aside, “Am I as good as I think I am?” I find when I hit that the most is typically before something new. 

Jerrett used the example earlier. We did 80 Beef Wellingtons for Valentine’s Day. I had made one Beef Wellington in my life. I did two for the testing thing that Jerrett mentioned and then I made 80. For whatever reason, the chef world has become obsessed with all things puff pastry and all things Beef Wellington. My feet are filled every day with the most stunningly beautiful, picture-perfect Beef Wellington you could ever imagine. I had this moment before Jerrett and I talked about it. He said, “Do you want to go through the work of doing 80 Beef Wellingtons?” I said, “Yes,” but the bigger question I don’t think he was asking was, “Do you feel confident doing this new thing? Would it be safer to do the gnocchi, trout and steak frites that we’ve been doing for four years?” On the precipice of new things and on the precipice of pushing myself or pushing others in deciding to take that leap into the unknown, that’s when I find myself questioning it. 

The Experimental Leader: Be a New Kind of Boss to Cultivate an Organization of Innovators

The most important question is, how did it go? How were the Beef Wellingtons? 

They were great. We’ve got a ton of great feedback. It was one of the easiest services I’ve ever done. The week of prep was pretty difficult, but they went very well. 

I’m going to chime in here. There’s a piece that he’s leaving out of that story. When we were in the middle of all these takeout bags and people were taking their food home, people were calling the restaurant as they were eating their food and saying, “We could not wait to tell you that this is the best food we have had all year.” That happened multiple times. What was not identified at the time, but when you look back on it, the reason why that was so satisfying is because it felt like those guests were giving us feedback right in our own restaurant in real time. That for me and for what Chef John did that night was like you managed to tap into immediate feedback from our guests just like they were sitting at a table and saying to the server, “You have to tell the kitchen that this is amazing.” It was amazing and emotional. These people cannot wait to tell us how great their food is. Everyone felt it, for sure. Kudos to the kitchen team. They managed to capture an experience in something that they had never done before, 80 Beef Wellingtons. It’s complicated. It’s a five-day process and it all came to an amazing result. 

When you were on that edge, feeling the impostor syndrome and wondering if you had the skill, I’m looking for the insights or wisdom that you used to kiss yourself over that edge, to go ahead and take the risk, to do the thing that you didn’t know if you could do or not. 

Whiskey is not allowed to be the answer I’m guessing. 

Whiskey could be the answer. 

This is something that sets certain people apart. It is the willingness to fully commit to something. We’ve talked about all the different feasts we’ve done over the year, but we talked about Valentine’s specifically. I remember sending him the draft if this is perfect. I said, “I think I’m biting off a bit more than I can chew here.” We took one option off. We were going to do a lamb as well. We took it back a little bit. I had some whiskey and thought about it. Once we were locked into it, that was it. There was no moment of, “Maybe we‘ll only sold five of these. Maybe we should change it.” It was this willingness from myself and the rest of the team, I don’t know how much of a choice they have as they went along with it, to go and not look back. 

That’s been one of the unofficial themes in 2020. Can we do 200 meals a day, four days a week and ship them up to Waterloo? I don’t know but we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to think about it. Once we make that decision, we’re going to make it happen to the best of our abilities no matter what. Are we going to partner with this new food delivery service, become their caterer and figure out how to do $3,000 worth of food every week? We’ll think about it. I don’t know, maybe. We’re going to go for it and nothing is going to stop us. Once you have that impostor syndrome or whatever you want to talk about it, once you’ve made the decision, you can’t look back. You can course correct and make adjustments, but you can’t spend your days going, “Was this a good idea?” It’s going to distract you from executing what it is you decided to do. 

I want to shift gears. Early in the pandemic, when I was picking up food at the tavern, I dropped off a couple of The Experimental Leader books mostly because it was the only thing I could think of to do to help. Before the show, I asked you what you’d gotten out of it. I’d love for each of you to share something that was useful in that book for you and why. Talk about how you’ve done that in your organization if you’re willing. It’s such a fun opportunity for me to get to hear your voices around that. 

We’ve talked about this earlier. For me, reading about Gemba Walks and walking the floor as what was written, doing it spontaneously and not scheduled. If it’s scheduled, then people are going to try to be perfect. These last couple of months, we have had no choice or I have had no choice but Gemba walks were necessary daily. You never knew when you would have to help out and watch, run food or answer the phone. There was this immediate change in my relationship with people who were in the company. They saw a different side of not only bartending, serving and dishwashing, but they also saw a different side of me interacting with the guests. Typically, there’s me, general manager, assistant manager, bartender servers and then the guests. There were layers there. All of a sudden, I was guest-facing and employee-facing. That for me was like I’ve now defined what I’ve been doing on a consistent basis for not only the last few months, but certainly in my career. It was a nice way to package it I suppose. 

For the people who are reading who aren’t familiar with the idea of a Gemba walk, it’s from Toyota manufacturing or any kind of manufacturing where you’re on a manufacturing floor. Traditionally, the leaders were up above, where they could look down over everyone. The Gemba walk is walking down the stairs onto the factory floor to see what’s happening in the moment without prepping. If you set a meeting to talk about something, everybody shows up prepared and you don’t get the experience of going to where the work is happening to see how it is happening. There’s so much information in that. What I’m excited about that you pulled out of the book is, “Food is manufacturing in a creative and an elevated way.” I love that that carries through. Thank you for that. I love knowing how things get applied. 

I think about the times that I delivered food to your house. 

People are going to learn how much of a relationship I have with The French. 

It’s when we had no delivery drivers and we were very reluctant to join the world of Uber.  

We’ve been on for a long time or I’d be diving into how you figure out partnerships. There’s so much to talk about here. John, do you want to weigh in? Is there anything in the book that you found useful? 

It’s the same with Jerrett. Gemba walks is interesting. I found experimenting around a bottleneck interesting. It is certainly something we already do and haven’t necessarily had the terminology around it. Same with Jerrett, I spend as much time in the kitchens in real-time as possible and go on those Gemba walks. I spend a lot of time focusing on the bottleneck. The bottleneck in any kitchen anywhere is service. You can always come in earlier. You can always prep more, but there is a finite number of people in the burners to cook food for a variable number of people. It’s making sure that our menus, staffing and plating works. What you can plate for a menu tasting with me and what you can plate at 6:00 on a Monday night service with ten people in the restaurant is vastly different from what you can plate at 7:30 in normal times, 7:30 on a Friday night with a full restaurant and ten tables behind it, waiting for food, “I forgot to drop the fries.” It’s all got to work in that environment. 

I can’t remember the number of times I’ve said to our chefs, “Can you do this on a Friday night?” Whether that be the actual cooking or plating of it, whatever. It’s got to work in the real world. Those Wellingtons were super fun. They would not work. I remember our general manager said to me, “Let’s do Wellingtons every Friday or something.” In a real-world scenario, those don’t work. They take at least half an hour to cook. They need to rest. They take five days to make. There are many variables you always need to be thinking of and we don’t always catch them. I can think of many dishes that I did not test well enough for the bottleneck test. You beat your head against the wall in why isn’t this working until you realize that it’s that one thing that needs to change. 

I think it’s fascinating if we look at those Wellingtons, the idea of takeout gives you this unique opportunity to produce something that you can’t produce. The possibility in the constraint is fascinating. What’s the thing that you can only produce if you sell out? I tried to buy that meal, but it was sold out. What’s the possibility in the constraint? If you can pre-sale something, the amazing meal that you could never make in a dining restaurant is a cool concept. 

You were reading my mind. Where I start to go is those Wellingtons were all pre-ordered. We knew exactly how many we did. What is stopping us from having Wellingtons available on a Saturday night for pre-order of dining in? You know when the guest is going to come in. They’ve pre-ordered their Wellington. They’ve paid for their Wellington. How do you incorporate those two worlds in this new reality? If you want a Wellington for a special occasion on a Saturday, can you go online and look at all the 2 or 3 menu items that you can pre-order? Five days beforehand, Chef John and the team know that on Saturday at 7:30 PM, they’re going to need three Wellingtons. There’s no waste. It’s pre-ordered, that’s it. They work it into their table. I find that fascinating of how you can elevate a dining experience that we know what people want, but how do you incorporate that into the nightly service. 

Food Takeout Service: Being the best cook does not necessarily qualify you to lead people.

You’re talking about flow of a moment or flow of a process, but there’s also the general flow of when your busy times are annually and when they’re slow. In the beginning of April, will people order Wellingtons because you’ve hyped them as this thing that they can only get during this special time? Is there a way to use that to control bottlenecks and create excitement over your slow times? 

I hope so because I’m going to pick up 40 pounds of rhubarb for our pies. 

That’s delicious. 

Melanie brings up a good point. Would there be enough demand to do Wellington Mondays? What was typically a slow night on a weekday becomes the busiest night of the week.” There are all these possibilities as well. I’ll also think about it as we re-open and re-imagine our businesses. 

This is my last question for both of you. What are you excited about? What are you wanting to move toward for the rest of 2021? 

I am looking forward to serving guests again. It was funny the days before Valentine’s and people were calling in and giving that real feedback. I was talking to Jerrett about how much I miss that. We’ve come up with some cool stuff in 2020 and not just myself, the chefs, sous chefs and cooks as well. You come up with this great idea and the time period of excitement is short now. Once the four people who worked in that restaurant who have tried the dish and gone, “This is good.” That’s it. You don’t get to see table four enjoying this new thing that you and the team have created. I’m looking forward to that. 

I’m looking forward to watching our leaders develop their new teams as Jerrett mentioned and helping guide them through that. I’m also looking forward to being able to use seasonal produce. There were a lot of things that we couldn’t do in 2020. I missed asparagus season completely and a lot of good seasonal foods because we were too busy or didn’t have the resources to buy it because it’s usually expensive or the avenue to sell it. That’s guests and building the teams. 

What about you, Jerrett? 

Food Takeout Service: People who are in line for promotions need more real training.

I’m looking forward to having the leaders in this company do more of what they love as opposed to doing more of what they have to. It’s wearing on people. I look forward to the day where we don’t have to wipe down Moneris terminals. I look forward to the day that I can look at our hands and them not being scabbed over by all the handwashing. I’m looking forward to seeing our existing leaders and new leaders be able to shine without so many obstacles. I worry about that. I worry that the focus on all of the stuff that we have to focus on. We’re not passionate about it or we don’t love it. Few months in, we have people leaders who haven’t seen their families and their loved ones and that impacts their leadership. I’d like to wave the magic wand and say, “You don’t have to think about that now. Be hospitable and be a great leader.” That’s what I’m looking forward to. Maybe a pipe dream, but that’s what I have my sights set on that little blurry light down the road. 

Thank you so much for coming and being on my show. It’s been great to have you. 

It’s been a pleasure. 

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It was an incredible pleasure to get to talk to John and Jerrett about how they’ve been using the concepts of The Experimental Leader in their work. I loved how they talked about Gemba walks for going to where the food is made and seeing how it’s being done, so that they get to experience what it’s like and how in this pandemic time, they’ve become the dishwashers, delivery drivers, prep cooks and everything that needed to be done, which gives them a fresh eye for the way the work is done in the restaurant. I love that they’re looking at bottlenecks, and how they think about bottlenecks and food, and how they’ve seen unique opportunities within the constraints as they make Beef Wellington, which takes five days to prepare. Since it’s pre-sold, it offers them a whole new opportunity to offer this to their customers. It’s been great talking with John and Jerrett. Go experiment. 

Important Links: 

• The Experimental Leader: Be a New Kind of Boss to Cultivate an Organization of Innovators 
• Gemba Walks 
• Equal Parts 
• The Butler Did It 

About Jerrett Young

Jerrett Young, a graduate of the University of Guelph with a Bachelor of Science and an MBA in Hospitality Management (graduating class of 2000) has devoted his education and career to the hospitality industry.

An advocate for the importance hospitality plays in our cities, communities, and neighborhoods; he aims to evolve hospitality business practices ensuring that they are current and competitive with other industries.

Jerrett owns his own consulting company and is an investor in the long-standing Toronto staffing agency The Butler Did It, where he continues to search for ways to combat the labor and diversity and inclusion obstacles that face our industry.

After a 15-year tenure at acclaimed Oliver & Bonacini as the Vice-President of Operations, Jerrett and his business partner Jason Cassis, founded Equal Parts Hospitality, a restaurant group and hospitality management company in Hamilton. They currently own and operate two golf courses, three restaurants and have a number of service agreements with partners such as McMaster Innovation Park, Westinghouse HQ, and the Hamilton airport.

Their most recent project is co-founders of The Laundry Rooms. A boutique short-term rentals company that offers all the amenities and services of a hotel. The Laundry Rooms’ light-touch, guest management model is built around minimizing interactions with staff, including remote check-in by mobile phone, keyless building entry, virtual concierge services, and on-demand housekeeping all within a fully-furnished, private residential setting. The privacy and exclusivity, as well as resiliency and adaptability of short-term rentals, cannot be overlooked, nor can the services of a great hotel.

In his spare time, Jerrett enjoys home cooking, exercising, and spending time exploring Niagara and the surrounding area with his husband Henry.

About John Forcier

As Director of Culinary Operations for Equal Parts Hospitality, John is responsible for guiding and shaping the culinary voice for all of the properties within Equal Parts. Working closely with the chefs and cooks in each restaurant, John focuses on ensuring every guest and member of our teams have satisfying and memorable experiences within our restaurants. John also spends a lot of his time working closely with local producers and purveyors to ensure that our restaurants are getting the highest quality ingredients possible.

After moving to Toronto to attend George Brown College for Culinary Management, John worked in several restaurants before spending almost 5 years at Oliver & Bonacini’s Canoe Restaurant. While Sous Chef at Canoe, he began to realize the importance of not only the finished dish but also who produces and prepares the food that goes onto that plate.

Having grown up in Georgetown, living and working in Toronto, and spending several months working overseas in London England, John has found a home in Hamilton where he lives downtown with his wife and son.

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