Okay, are you do you consent to being a senator? Yeah. Okay. Um, what is your full name?
It's gonna be free B R E. K and last name Kalin. co w am.
Um, how old are you? I'm 23. Right? Hey, and what exactly is your specific occupation here?
So I am the general manager newly promoted front of house back in managerial stuff and all of it so Oh, sweet.
Okay, so you were recently promoted What were you before
so I was hired initially as what we call a hospitality Manager, which is essentially like a front of house manager. So okay, front of house and kind of got transitioned out of the back of house side of things. So Got it, okay. And it took over the whole shebang. So that's something Okay. Yep, yep. Okay, where are you? From? I'm actually from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Okay, what brought you here? So actually this job, you know, I went to Spartanburg and I was managing at another chicken restaurant and I saw that they were opening here and my girlfriend actually lives here so it kind of got synced up perfectly.
Beautiful. Oh my god. You know, I'm
gonna take the opportunity and go for it. So I moved from Spartanburg and in March when we opened and Okay, started here full force. Wow.
Okay, so wait. So how long have you been in Athens since March,
march 17. Is a day I moved. Less than a year listen here.
So did you live in Spartanburg?
for about four and a half years. Oh, really? Okay.
How long have you lived anywhere else?
I've lived kind of all over. I'm from all over. I went I was born in Kansas City. moved to Florida. Myrtle Beach. Give me one second. I'll be right back.
A prankster? I guess so. One, okay. We got it. We got a few calls on there. Nobody really revealed the other ones that are stammered so somebody called and wasn't sure who they were calling. Or like, what is that? Hello. I'm a junior college. I did. I went to a really small all girls college called Congress college. It's in Spartanburg. So a lot smaller than UGA. Residential. Okay, what was your major? I actually triple majored so I did. Yeah. Jesus. Okay. I did a psychology, politics and Spanish, Spanish, Spanish. Not anymore. To college throughout that COVID era were like two years we weren't we were virtually nobody to really get to use it. Yeah, and I lost a lot of it. Oh, I can read it pretty well. On the customer making it much harder. Much harder.
What is your favorite color? Great. Great to see. You seem like a green person or like a light
blue. Yeah. Okay, I'll take my blue
what's your favorite animal?
That was tough. This is gonna sound the rage but I love squirrels and more specifically, I love campus schools. Okay, so
you've seen the ones here okay,
that makes sense. Like campus squirrels just have like a certain audacity about them. They're like love freedom and you know, like they I've had like, on my campus like the squirrels dropped out. It's like from the trees like they'll sit there and wait for the stock.
Okay. What's your favorite clothing items?
I like jackets. I get cold easily. I like a good city or jacket. Okay, something was good. Okay, sure. I
get it. I get it. What is your go to fast food order?
It means you can't say something from reps. No, I
was actually going to put sort of my next question. Okay,
I'll give you something different. I might go to my guilty pleasures like the the chicken Supremes from Bojangles fries and the mashed potatoes and all that. I've never been a virgin ever. No. I'm from Myrtle Beach and that was big in Myrtle Beach. Really?
Okay. I'm from Colorado. I'm like not did they add it there? No, not that I feel like they, they could totally have it and really if you were to describe yourself as a type of egg what would it be and why?
Ovaries Oh,
overeasy. Okay, why
I like to think of laid back. I don't really have a lot of like I'd say I just I like to chill. I like to go with the flow. I like to just kind of ease into things. I think I'm pretty friendly and try to act that way towards, okay,
good, solid, solid answer. Okay,
you know, we actually do this thing here called temperature time. And basically, during our freeship We'll go around and do whoever's here and give it like a degree of a basically a degree for like, Sunny side up to over hard or like fry or hard if you're over hard for that day. Like that's just an indication like, Hey, I'm having a bad day. But it's a little bit of extra space. So we kind of go through and just make sure everybody's on the same page. I really Yeah, that's like precious. Trying to make sure like I've kind of managed from a standpoint of like, I know, they're all human. I've been in the restaurant business for a long time. A lot of our students a lot of them have a lot of things. I like to keep above ground it Sure.
Oh, that's so cute. Okay, jumping back to Roxy. Like, how did you get involved? Do they reach out to you? Or did you see it or? Yeah,
so I was actually visiting my girlfriend one time. And we were walking to downtown and they had a sign up in this window because it used to be the Scoville hot chick. Yes. Damn and all that. Yes. And, you know, I peered in and saw that it was a chicken restaurant. Like I said, I've been I've been in a chicken restaurant for four years now. Really? Okay. Okay. So, you know, I saw that they were opening something and I looked at her and I said, I wonder if there's going to be another chicken restaurant. And then about two months later, we saw the little sign for now hiring Brooksie and stood out to them and came for an interview one day and about two weeks later, I moved here. Wow, okay. It was a really quick turnaround. Really
quick. Okay. So you said you recently got promoted? And you were hustling? Hospitality?
Yep. Hospitality and hospitality before?
What got you promoted?
So we actually had a couple of issues with our crash course. So it was kind of just, I was the next one to step up and that roll on and, you know, it was just kind of a matter of time. I was already doing a lot of those tasks. Yeah. It just made sense. And it helped out my boss a lot, kind of having this in mind. So, um, Who is your boss? So it's one of technically there's two franchise owners. So this is a franchise location, the rest are based in California. Okay. So, my boss Neil is the franchise owner here. He's actually actually opening one in Chamblee, which is like right outside of it.
I saw that as well. Yeah, so cool. Okay. Um, what season were in the chicken business? Do you think that led you to this point, like being
more or less? Yeah, I mean, I started out at that other chicken restaurant in Spartanburg as like a server. I was serving bartending and then I kind of moved back past and learned all along. So literally, they promoted me to assistant manager. So it was just kind of like the next logical step to like keep looking for positions that would give me more skills and that kind of thing. So totally. Yes.
So okay. What is your favorite part? About being a GM?
This is gonna sound maniacal. But I love having the ability to organize and kind of have that I'm like, a super organized this oriented person. Yeah, the devils in the details. So like everything in my back of house is so organized. Everybody has what they need. Everybody knows where everything's at, like my drive for it is like, you know, like my favorite really. So I think I like having that. I hate to use the word control. Okay, I have my hands on a lot of different aspects of the business which, in my mind makes it run a little bit easier because everything is streamlined. Everybody knows to go to me for questions or issues and things like that. So I think it's a really cool spot to be in when, you know, I think I've been working with a lot of these people for a year. So yeah, I was just their coworker and on the ball and a boss. You know, it's cool to have their respect and work with them with all
these think like moving up in rank, like since you were hospitality before and moving up, like do you think like that, like, gained their trust marks this even more second?
I think so. Um, you know, we had a rough start with the offseason and everything was so busy and we just didn't know what to expect. So yeah, a lot of it was like, just trial by air and we all kind of bonded we all kind of like trauma bonded through that. So, you know, we have a lot of a lot of built up respect for each other. Sure.
It's awesome. Okay. Seriously, we're coming up on a year and being open in March, which is awesome. What are the biggest compliments and biggest challenges that y'all had face you personally and that you think the company has faced so far? accomplishments
I think just keeping our doors open and getting word out has been huge for us. You know, I'll I feel like nine out of 10 people I talk to you don't really know what Brexit is. That's kind of two phase that's an accomplishment and in and of itself to have kind of reached out to the communities that we have. Yeah. But in the same, like, same kind of breath. We have so much opportunity to get the word out about Brexit. Yeah, and the more we can get the word out, like the more foot traffic we'll get more money we'll bring in is higher, that whole thing so
perfect. And then what's your biggest challenge you face is the more staffing staffing like lack of
people that are dedicated to the roles, you know, a lot of unfortunately, just viewed as a paycheck and well I understand because like, I like my money to know I want people who want to come to work and want to be part of a team that's actually doing something cool, you know, okay, so that was yeah, it's always a struggle to find those right people like the right puzzle. Pieces of yeah, in a business. So
beautiful. Sensor analogy. What is something new that you're hoping to like implement or like bring or like, do
you have like any like ideas? We're actually in the works of doing a whole bunch and really, yes, we're starting a Monday night. Trivia, hopefully sometime in the future. Brianna, do you know some sort of theme trivia rotate throughout the week, so I'm gonna kind of get that running. And the same thing we're starting to happy hour with that we're gonna do pictures and buckets and all that for beer and all that kind of stuff. So we're definitely look into up those. Okay, so many so many ideas. So many ideas. You're
already searchings here.
What do we do? We have a couple of taps. Oh, yeah, getting our frozen machine up and running over. There's a big cocktail. Kind of drinks and
stuff. Okay, fine.
Wine ones and stuff like that. So that's pretty good. We did it a little bit during the summer and kind of fell off during the winter. It's obviously obvious coming in asking for approval drink. degrees out, but yeah, we're looking forward to getting our back started up and fixing ourselves that way too.
Okay, Brooksie y'all have 10 other locations was like literally all that being in California. I'm like, this is like sort of a four part question. So go with the homeless. Are there any vices but like the CEO being in California?
And no, it kind of gives me a peace of mind. He's a good three hours away. If there's any issues we can always either work them out ourselves. You know, if it's a problem we're having late at night, we can still reach out to him directly. Three hours behind. Yeah, so didn't even think about that. Oh, it's it's nice. And his daughter actually goes to UGA. So you know, she comes in all the time. He comes and visits all the time. So it's actually nice. You would think for a company that's a little bit bigger and has 10 Plus locations. You know, and CEO, what have you so hands on, but it's actually really like helpful to hear from him a lot. So that's great. Yeah, it's awesome. Just from a standpoint of like having worked somebody like service industry jobs, having a CEO cares recognizes your hard work and is active in the business is like instrumental to everybody's success.
Um, do you think that there's any, like, cultural differences since it was started in California? Like, yes, you're from the south? Yes. Border raise so
many different, like,
oh, gosh, like what?
So I actually visited the at the beginning of the year, I was in California for a week training with them. So yeah, they sent me out there and I got to work with the director of operations. Got to see a whole bunch of the different locations and stuff. The difference is so effective. Really example we have a buffalo chicken sandwich as like a local Athens offering. They swore up and down but it wasn't going to be worth they're trying to take it off the menu and mix it like the buffalo sauce in general. And like, Isn't it like the biggest we pretty much fought tooth and now we were like, Y'all don't understand like, the South. This is the south people want buffalo sauce and like same thing with like, the unsweet tea. They used to just make unsweet tea over in California. They don't make sweet tea.
That's right. Okay,
right. So like here, obviously, those things are different and it's just a little bit different. In I guess the vibe. The whole concept of hospitality is very real. The atmosphere in the restaurants are a little bit different. There's not a lack of hospitality, but it's a little bit different with like the Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I told somebody yesterday, I'm in the store and they looked at me and they were like, what do you do see?
Yeah, it's the culture. That was a construct when everyone back home called someone that Yes, ma'am. It's like an insult. Right? Right. Why are you calling me?
Like I'm so sorry. I'm from South Carolina. I was raised, you know. Wow.
Okay. So you went to Cali in the stores. The stores like oh look like this or were they like more?
They're all set up a little bit different. So the the original location in orange South Carolina is literally like Orange, California. It's, it's like a little square like their kitchen is so condensed like you see back there. It's like a cool kid. Yeah. Roundabout. There's just like a little square. They operate off of one fryer. They get like one small extra table all of their sauces on ice. Like everything is just really condensed with small it's outdoor seating only. That kind of thing. Okay, and that's a location that does $55,000 of business a week. Smallest locations most profitable. Like they've got it down to 55,000 a week. What do y'all make? It depends. We're a lot more seasonal based kind of with our numbers. So we'll range anywhere from 10,000 on a slow leak to like 25,000 on a really busy Oh, okay. So like, during football season, we'll definitely be hitting 2530
You know, me and my mom. We came in and the line was around the blog. And we waited in it for like 30 minutes.
All right. Give me one more second. Go ahead. Go ahead
I was to answer the phone. Sorry. I was I was a host and I would just take the greater how's it be like? Can you fit like 35 I'm like, not really like Where? Where I can tell you. Do you think there's any issue? Because I know they're building a new Georgia location. Is there any issue like being the only one this far like, is there any like big expectation or so
we're actually kind of the the 10 test for like a corporate store in the East Coast or on the east coast. So they're looking at opening opening a corporate store in Atlanta. So we're kind of the test run to see how it's gonna go. And we're kind of meant to be a training store for that. In between. So there are a lot of expectations just to first and foremost, get it profitable. That's a big task, right? And making sure we're sustainable and can stay and want to be part of the community and all that. So just beyond that, getting initiatives out there to become part of the UGA campus you know, the pressure is definitely on for it. But we have a lot of support from corporate it's a lot less pressure and a lot more support. So
less pressure How do you I know that you're new to position but like how would you measure success like is like isn't enough money for him or money
is a big part of it obviously is a business so you want your financials to be in line. I consider anything success to be happy customers, people that are leaving happy and want to come back. You know, we measure success by reviews. Reviews are another big one. Yeah, I'd say those are the big three. What are the big three? Big Three, just consistency to you know, making sure the food's consistent and that ties in with having happy customers who want to come back and spend your spend their money, you know,
sort of on that train. If you were to like put that on, like a scale of like 110 Would you say that Brexit is successful?
I'd say we're on our way to being successful. We're a lot better now than we were probably three or four months ago when Okay, so we're definitely on the right track to getting there for sure. Hey, guys, welcome in. I'll be right with you. Okay. Oh, go ahead. I know what the
Who's your main competitor?
AAA honestly,
really ought to be number one, number one, I guess. So.
I think people look up chicken in the downtown areas. That end of it or they use this. So
I saw that you've opened your new late night hours. Have they been productive?
think they've been productive. Again. It's a matter of getting the word out and you know, hopefully increasing the amount of foot traffic that we get from it. I think the warmer it gets, the more successful they're going to be people are walking from bar A to part B you know, trying to stay warm and all that so I know they're not necessarily like where's the food? Yeah, but as it gets warmer, I'm hoping to spend more time out about cruising around and look at that and be like, Wow, they're open right now.
What was the thought behind staying open with money?
Money, more money did more and again awareness getting the word out that we're here
you can totally take them if you want to watch
a live watch. So whenever they're ready, okay.
Who's your biggest customer demographic Do
you think we get a lot of students? I'd say we also get a lot of like, surrounding offices and stuff. There's a lot of like, chamber of Congress people a lot of that area by the bank and city hall and all that. We get a lot of those Yeah.
Is there any demographic that you don't reach, but you want to
make sure no, we definitely want to reach out to students more. I think, you know, we do get a healthy amount of students but I think we definitely want to increase that amount. Like I said, a lot of people don't know that we exist or what we are so they erupts and they're like What what are you you know
sort of on that task. Is there anything you'd like Athens to know about? Rexy
try it out. It's not a gimmick. I know that. A lot of restaurants like this can seem gimmicky, like you know, why is it so expensive? Why is it so you know? Avant Garde and everything honestly the food's good. I've been here almost a year and I eat it almost every day. Like I I'm to the point where I'm creating my own menu items but I you know, it's good. So it's it's actually good food. We prepped everything fresh every day. You know everything is made to order. We have a big emphasis is on hospitality. So like, if you think it's expensive, you also have to consider the experience that we're trying to provide you so, you know, overall, I just want people to know that it's, it's quality is quality for any amount of money.
Perfect. Okay, and then last question. What is your favorite menu item?
I'm gonna go with the Nutella waffle sandwich. That was probably my favorite.
Sick because that's what I'm going to order because I've actually never had it before. So that's awesome. Awesome. Oh my god. Thank you so much. This is beautiful. You're great talker.
I try lovely. Don't worry about paying for that waffle. I
get it wrong. I got you. I know I can you just
tell him banana or the Nutella strawberry shepherds. I got you. I can like can I like
you like bring me a bow for like $1 So great already
