And how did you get here? Obviously you had some hospitality background.

So I started in the business when I was 15.

Like a lot of people, my first job was a cook.

I was a cook at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

I grew up in small town Missouri and worked my way through the ranks over the years.

I got a job at a chain restaurant when I was 19 as a server and bartender.

And I was a shy girl from a really small town.

excuse me so it's a big move obviously to sort of just shift course and be like okay i'm going to start my own company and it's going to be about coaching and not not in the operations side of it anymore management how do you get a company like that up off its feet how do you like how do you get your first clients it seems like it's a big space where a lot of people are doing consulting now i know yours is a little bit more specific and maybe that's why you had elaine but yeah maybe tell us how you got things going

Have you implemented anything within kind of your universe to where you're helping people deal more with Just a different world that we live in, the Yelp principle of sorts.

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things.

I think a lot of clients come to us and say, hey, I want some help.

Or it comes up in the conversation where we do quarterly planning and annual planning with them.

What marketing initiatives do we want to put in place? What operation initiatives do we want to put into place? Where do we want sales? Everybody wants to drive top line, right? Everybody thinks that they need to do more marketing.

And what we really look at is like, let's look at the experience first and foremost that's in your four walls.

Yes, let's go look at your reviews.

Consulting style.

If you promote, let's just say your best GM out of the unit, like who actually wins in that scenario, the company or the guests in that dining room who loses the person who made it work? So I'm curious to hear your perspective.

This is fascinating because I've got so many different perspectives on it, but when I was a GM and moved into a regional manager position, I really struggled because I was trying to be a super GM and I didn't understand what the expectations of that role was.

And it was really, really, really challenging.

And I look back in my career and went, man, for three years I had a really hard time trying to figure out where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do and what questions to ask because I just did not know what I didn't know and I didn't know how to be better.

And that was very much a concept that grew from six to 48 locations over seven years, was very passionate about internal growth.

But you're right, I was a very high-performing GM that had moved through a couple different concepts and proven myself with some openings and then really fell flat on my face from a regional perspective.

Now, for the clients that we work with that are typically independent multi-unit, they want to grow and scale.

In our industry, do you think that is a legend or a cautionary tale? And what does that answer say about what we actually value?

Was there a moment that you can remember in your, in your career where you w- where the bug was yours, you had caught it, and you're in and, um, let's go at this?

Yeah, I mean, it happened for me a couple times.

When I graduated, um, high school and I moved to Colorado, I got a job at Outback Steakhouse.

This was 1999 when the company, you know, was kind of all the rage.

And, and I got a job serving, and then I worked my way up to bartending.

And I was, you know, a shy girl from a small town in the Midwest, and I worked at the busiest, um, Outback in the state of Colorado.

It was right next to World Arena Events Center.

[chuckles]

i think kind of what i do and what i blab on about but let's hear everything let's hear your origin story into today let's let's do it

yeah so like you said i'm kristen marvin um ceo and founder of columbine hospitality uh similar to you just creating a lot of really fun space uh fun things in the space of content creation post restaurant operator and managing partner so we have a podcast which is called no hesitations which is a spin-off no reservations Yeah.

So I love that when you reached out, I was like, this is awesome.

Um, ours is the restaurant leadership podcast.

And then, um, at Columbine hospitality, we empower restaurant groups to build businesses that run without them.

So my, my journey started at 15 as a line cook, and I quickly transitioned into the front of the house and my teens, my first Front of house job was serving and bartending at Outback in 1999 when it was all the rage and so much fun.

And I learned so much about systems and discipline and accountability and great training and competition in that time span.

And then like your least favorite.

But yeah, I didn't feel like you had to coach up before COVID as much.

Y- yeah, I mean, it's, it, you're so right.

It, you know, we know that 6 million people left the industry during the pandemic, and those positions have been filled, but they've been filled with people with less and less experience.

And so it is putting pressure on every single level of operations.

It's starting with hire- you know, restaurants that we coach and, and clients we work with all the time.

We immediately have to start looking at their hiring practices.

Do you have core values for the business? What are you measuring a good candidate against? Because we've had to retrain everybody in the industry of what to actually look for, right? They were looking for skills, and those skillsets went away.

The just, the training has changed so much.

I'd love to hear just about that experience.

Yeah, I think, you know, I've been lucky in my career and worked really hard to open 13 different restaurants and, you know, multiple different concepts.

Some I've scaled, you know, the same concept and others I've opened, you know, speakeasy, barbecue restaurant, casual French, casual Italian, all kinds of fun ones.

There, I think when you're a guest, we see this a lot, when you're a guest in a restaurant, You look around and go, wow, this looks like fun.

People are having a good time.

They're on their feet.

They're active.

Why is the toughest it's ever been?