Adapt your business for each province‘s culture

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[00:38] SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone. Today I'm with Ritu Maloney, who's president, co-founder, and CEO of Pure and Simple.
[00:45] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being with us on the show.
[00:47] SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Brenda, for having me.
[00:49] SPEAKER_02: Great. Well, it seems like, as I said before, you've built a breakfast empire all across Canada.
[00:55] SPEAKER_02: So tell us how you got to create this great business that people can find and enjoy your breakfast all around it in many different cities in Canada.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: Well, we started with our first location in Quebec.
[01:09] SPEAKER_00: We're originally from here.
[01:12] SPEAKER_00: Our first location was in Vimal Laval, actually.
[01:15] SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't a fairy tale story.
[01:18] SPEAKER_00: We worked really long, hard hours.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: I didn't expect to be, you know, I come from a marketing and a fashion background, and I went into, and I went into restaurants thinking this is a great dynamic industry.
[01:32] SPEAKER_00: Got into it and realized the restaurant business is fun.
[01:35] SPEAKER_00: It's great because you're constantly surrounded by amazing guests.
[01:39] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's a lot of hard work.
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: And my first couple of years, I learned what it was like to be a surfer and how amazing the career of hosting and greeting and creating hospitality is in the restaurant business.
[01:56] SPEAKER_00: So we started with that first location.
[02:00] SPEAKER_00: And from there, we had so much interest in Atlantic Canada, actually, to open a breakfast concept out east.
[02:08] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, being natives of Quebec, we're like, this is, you know, breakfast is only in Quebec. We're in, we're the, this is the breakfast capital of the world.
[02:18] SPEAKER_00: And, but we saw this opportunity as, well, there's so many breakfast restaurants in Quebec.
[02:24] SPEAKER_00: We know how to do it really well.
[02:26] SPEAKER_00: So why not take this experience, reinvent breakfast like we're doing, and take it all the way across Canada?
[02:35] SPEAKER_00: And so doing that, we became the new kids on the block in Atlantic Canada.
[02:41] SPEAKER_00: We literally started a breakfast culture outside of Quebec.
[02:46] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, Korra started here and, you know, the Alamo cocos and all of the other breakfast concepts that we haven't Quebec.
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: They all started here, but Korra was the only one that really branched out.
[02:59] SPEAKER_00: And we said, you know what, we could do this. We can, we can make breakfast and we call it, we, we call it reinvented.
[03:06] SPEAKER_00: We call it sexy. We, we try to take breakfast and take the greasy out of it and then the diner out of it.
[03:13] SPEAKER_00: We really give people an experience.
[03:16] SPEAKER_00: So we opened our second location in Monkton, New Brunswick.
[03:20] SPEAKER_00: And we did not expect the love that we got there.
[03:23] SPEAKER_00: Like to the point where the first couple of days we actually had to close the doors because we couldn't handle the volume.
[03:33] SPEAKER_00: When there's like, you know, when it takes breakfast, you're supposed to come out in 15 minutes. It was taking 50.
[03:38] SPEAKER_00: So we didn't expect the lineups. We didn't expect the love.
[03:42] SPEAKER_00: And we got our acts together quite quickly.
[03:46] SPEAKER_00: And we opened and we were just lying.
[03:49] SPEAKER_00: People loved it. And you know, we did breakfast differently because of the decor was one major aspect.
[03:58] SPEAKER_00: But the other aspect was the, the food presentation.
[04:03] SPEAKER_00: It what we made everything when somebody came, when the plate came in front of you, you had to say, wow.
[04:09] SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't, your mouth was watering or you were speechless. That was the, that was the goal.
[04:16] SPEAKER_00: And when we first started, Instagram wasn't even so big. But we said, that was the goal to make everything Instagramable.
[04:25] SPEAKER_00: And giving a beautiful environment, giving a wild presentation, and then adding the hospitality portion where it's not just, you know, how many, your tables ready.
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: No, it's really, we want to get to know everybody's name that comes into this restaurant.
[04:41] SPEAKER_00: And getting to that affinity with the guests and treating them like, you know, a, you know, people that, you know, are invited in your home.
[04:53] SPEAKER_00: Those three aspects allowed us, I think, to expand the way that we did.
[04:59] SPEAKER_00: And not ever taking our eyes off the quality and the, and the consistency that you have to create, you know, a brand to do coast to coast.
[05:10] SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure that it was perfect from Vimal Laval to Mountain New Brunswick, and then all the ones until, you know, number 25 that we just opened last week.
[05:21] SPEAKER_02: And talking about that, you know, like what, what differences in the restaurant culture have you seen from coast to coast?
[05:29] SPEAKER_02: You know, like, are there places where it was easier or people who want to fulfill that mission for their restaurant?
[05:35] SPEAKER_02: You know, I want to open more location across Canada.
[05:38] SPEAKER_02: What does that look like? What did you encounter in doing this?
[05:43] SPEAKER_00: So it's a great question because we didn't think breakfast could be that different across Canada.
[05:49] SPEAKER_00: Right? We said, you know, we do breakfast in Quebec. We have cut down.
[05:53] SPEAKER_00: We can have, you know, we have our baked beans. Everybody loved, like everybody loves baked beans.
[05:58] SPEAKER_00: We got to Atlanta, Canada and they're like, well, what is that?
[06:04] SPEAKER_00: And no matter how much you educate people, that's not necessarily the vibe or the style of eating that they like.
[06:12] SPEAKER_00: And then going to Western Canada, you realize, you know, people are more food centric.
[06:17] SPEAKER_00: They're more health centric. And I think we got very lucky because our name can target many different markets.
[06:25] SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be breakfast and lunch. And it could be a little bit of a healthier twist on breakfast if we need or lighter options.
[06:33] SPEAKER_00: So I think we were able to counteract a lot of the, you know, West Coast, you know, vegan culture and the keto diets and everything like that with the amount of variety that we had on our menu.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: We have, we have the gluttonous dishes where you can have your three French toast filled with cinnamon bacon and whipped cream and Nutella.
[06:53] SPEAKER_00: And then you can have your keto, you know, your keto dish or you could have your vegan avocado toast and it's, there's just something for everybody.
[07:04] SPEAKER_02: That's really cool. I'm, I'm, I'm excited to try all of them now because I see that you're adopting the menu depending on where you go and what stick or what doesn't.
[07:12] SPEAKER_02: And it's really, as you said, you know, it seems like you've put a lot of focus in finding the right recipe for the right people.
[07:21] SPEAKER_02: So, so logistically as the COO, you know, how did you feel about having to adapt your, I imagine almost everything, you know, like the menu, the cooking, the recipes, the book, the everything, like logistically, what did you find that help you go through these small changes that you have to do along, along the way.
[07:42] SPEAKER_00: So, I think, I think we, what we did was we evolve our menu almost every six months to every year.
[07:49] SPEAKER_00: So that helps a lot, right? So we don't have a different menu in every different problem.
[07:53] SPEAKER_00: We actually adapted our menu to constantly see what's selling, what's not, what's trending, what's not.
[08:00] SPEAKER_00: We also have regular LTOs, which are limited time offers to kind of see what, what people are interested in and what we could put on and take off the menu.
[08:09] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we do a lot of research and development that's A and B, you know, we do evolve our menu very often.
[08:17] SPEAKER_00: So, yes, sorry, go ahead.
[08:20] SPEAKER_02: So, like, taking a lot of time to, to be, you're always in testing mode in the end, you know, it's not like this is our menu, this is what we've been doing for the last few years.
[08:28] SPEAKER_02: This is what we're going to keep doing. You're already evolving and testing along the way so that you know what to, what your clients want and be ahead of those trends, you know, because like eating, I has a lot of trends these days.
[08:42] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Eating is like the new designer thing, you know, you want to, when you go out, you want to go have a designer cocktail now.
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: You want to go have a really nice meal, but absolutely, it's really adapting to the changes quickly.
[08:54] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we don't always sit at home run, you know, we just launched a brand new menu and it is doing amazing.
[09:01] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, we took off a dish and I'm getting maybe five or six females a day from gas thing.
[09:06] SPEAKER_00: You took my, my favorite meal off the menu. Why would you do that?
[09:12] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, even with that, like, we keep tin your hospitality and we still serve it to them until they, you know, until they say,
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: and you know, we give them an opportunity to try other things, but you know, that's what they want.
[09:24] SPEAKER_00: That's what they're going to get at parents' info. So, you know, we, we do our very best to be resilient and adaptable as well, because, you know, guests are,
[09:34] SPEAKER_00: guests are quite picky these days and they should be. They know what good quality is.
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: And, and I think when they come to parents' info, I think they get the value for their hard earned money.
[09:47] SPEAKER_00: And, that's why what we call breakfast is an affordable luxury. It's still a luxury.
[09:53] SPEAKER_00: We want to make it feel like it's a luxury, but yet it's affordable for a family, before it's about a $20 bill for head.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: And, you can take your family out to breakfast.
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: The team at Silicon Valley Bank in Canada can help you move your bold ideas forward, fast,
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[10:18] SPEAKER_01: Visit www.svb.com slash Canada slash connect to find out more.
[10:27] SPEAKER_02: And I want to come back to, I think it's great. Affordable luxury definitely makes me want to go have breakfast every day and feel like a queen, you know.
[10:35] SPEAKER_02: So I really like that, that mentality around something that we do every single day, you know.
[10:41] SPEAKER_02: And I want to come back to the idea of, you know, you started in fashion.
[10:46] SPEAKER_02: And earlier you mentioned that, you know, you transition from fashion to entrepreneurship to restaurant for the dynamic of like dynamic industry.
[10:55] SPEAKER_02: Like, what did you get from fashion that really helped you to forge yourself to be a successful entrepreneur?
[11:04] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the fashion industry, everybody thinks it's all glam.
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: It's the complete opposite of all glam.
[11:12] SPEAKER_00: You're in, you know, we used to, when I was in clothing, my dad used to say, it was a family run business.
[11:18] SPEAKER_00: And he's like, we're in the schmutz of business, which is at the end of the day, your packing box is, you're shipping out clothes, you're buying, you're doing a lot of fun stuff.
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: But it's super dynamic and you're constantly running on adrenaline.
[11:33] SPEAKER_00: So I came from the retail sector. So yes, we did a lot of buying.
[11:37] SPEAKER_00: You know, I've traveled everywhere in Europe. Thank you to my dad. I love you.
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: You know, we've, we've gone on buying trips to LA to New York, to Vegas and, and, you know, but what fashion really comes down to is the exact same thing as what restaurants and, and us serving guests comes down.
[11:57] SPEAKER_00: Which is finding what they want and providing it in the nicest way possible.
[12:03] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you're looking for the sweater. You need to know what's trending. You need to know what people are looking for.
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to merchandise that perfectly. So that woman's going to see it on her and say, wow, I'm going to look good in this.
[12:15] SPEAKER_00: Right? And I'm going to, I have to buy this. I cannot leave this door without buying this.
[12:19] SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing in in in restaurant. You want to come in and you want them to say, you know, you want them to have this beauty.
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: Beautiful greeting. Welcome to Pure En Simple. You know, how many are, is anybody joining you today?
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: You want them to come in and have that great experience. Try almost everything on the menu because you sold it so well. You've packaged it so well.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: You've made it look so edible. And then then leaving saying, I don't need dinner. I don't need breakfast.
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: Lunch or dinner ever again. Because this was just the most satisfying meal. And I can't wait to come back to Pure En Simple.
[12:51] SPEAKER_00: So what I guess fashion taught me is, you know, it's dynamic. It's fun. It's, but it's constantly being with people.
[13:03] SPEAKER_00: So I was in the retail sector and going into restaurants. It's again, the retail sector. And it's just satisfying your guests.
[13:10] SPEAKER_00: Find out what they want. Make sure you give it to them. And they're going to be wanting it more and more and more and more.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, it was hard to find an industry that was that dynamic because you're dealing with so many different aspects.
[13:24] SPEAKER_00: You know, the buying it in fashion, you're dealing with buying, you're dealing with, you know, the retail, the staff.
[13:31] SPEAKER_00: You're dealing with constant changing trends, merchandising, where to put things on racks and in, in, in restaurants, you're doing the same thing.
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: You're constantly dealing with new franchise partners, their staff, finding out new ways to present your menu, new things to put on your menu.
[13:48] SPEAKER_00: And making it look so delicious and edible that people are going to want it again. So it was nice to have that continue with continuity of everything that I learned in my experiences and bring it from fashion into restaurant.
[14:00] SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting how you put it. How actually now I can see how those two industries were really are really aligned, but are similar in many ways.
[14:10] SPEAKER_02: But before you explain all of this, I didn't get that many connections. You know, so I can see that it was very transferable for you.
[14:17] SPEAKER_02: And what was the hardest thing that you've had to overcome in the last few years?
[14:24] SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of them. But I think I would start back in fashion, you know, in 2000, when the big box stores went in Quebec, my parents had a retail chain of almost 50 stores.
[14:38] SPEAKER_00: Anywhere from Irina Huski, he veiled to do all the way to, you know, Califon, Fio in La Salle.
[14:45] SPEAKER_00: So I used to do, I probably have done a million kilometers in Quebec driving.
[14:52] SPEAKER_00: But because we were traveling so much in the, in for the business, I started traveling and seeing, oh wow, there's Zara's.
[14:59] SPEAKER_00: There's H&M's. This was in 2000, right? And there's forever 21's at the time and these big urban behaviors and Costco wasn't even here.
[15:10] SPEAKER_00: And we have this small little retail chain of women's clothing. And I was like, how are we going to survive when all of these big retailers come in and just eat up our market share?
[15:23] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, seeing that trend with my parents, we decided that we were going to actually take ourselves out of the industry.
[15:32] SPEAKER_00: And we ended up within five years closing 50 stores. So that was my, I guess my inauguration into entrepreneurship at 19 years old.
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: So I graduated from university and I was still in university while I was working because I, I, I loved, you know, what my parents were doing and I really did want to support them along the way.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: And, yeah, I basically closed 50 stores, told over 300 people that they were out of jobs and not one of them left me before the end of the last day that we close each and every single one of the stores.
[16:11] SPEAKER_00: They stayed with me all the way till the end. And that's I think the biggest lesson. Your reputation is probably the best thing that you will ever have in your life.
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: You need to make sure that that is stellar because these people, these amazing individuals do not leave me to not leave my parents through the thick, through the good times or the bad.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: And it was because of who my, who, what, what they tried to create and build for these people, like, you know, for everybody that worked with us.
[16:42] SPEAKER_00: And I bring that now with.
[16:44] SPEAKER_00: Pure and simple to create that family environment that I was so lucky to have. And even though nobody in my family works in this business, everybody that works with me is my family.
[16:56] SPEAKER_00: And I treat them like family. And I don't know, we fight like family sometimes.
[17:02] SPEAKER_00: But it's that it's probably it's so the biggest challenge was closing everything, but learning that you can rebuild it all again was probably the best part of my last couple of years.
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: And it was probably the most rewarding for everybody that has been involved in pure and simple. But I think I've seen a very good, I think having that modesty and learning from the hard part.
[17:31] SPEAKER_00: I think it makes me a better leader because I'm not afraid of hard work. I am not afraid of driving a 20 foot big truck and putting in bunches of racks and, you know, being there with every single one of my staff members and saying, you know, I'm no better than you.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: I am, I'm just like you and I am going to you guys are all here with me and I will do everything in my power to always be the best me I can be.
[18:00] SPEAKER_00: So I think that was the biggest challenge, growing up.
[18:05] SPEAKER_02: Well, we hear a lot in entrepreneurship. Oh, you have to be resilient to be an entrepreneur. But I think that your story really demonstrates what resilience is and how you actually build, you know, you close everything and now you're building everything like now you're at 25 restaurants, like what's next where you're like, like, what do you, where do you see yourself?
[18:27] SPEAKER_02: I know it's a really big question, but you know, like now you've built it all almost all the way back up 25 more to go and you're at 50 again. So what does that look like for the future?
[18:38] SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
[18:41] SPEAKER_00: I just, you know what? Now I'm at that point where I take everything day by day. I used to be such a planner where I needed to get to somewhere to, you know, I achieve this and, you know, I'm going to be happy.
[18:55] SPEAKER_00: But you know, I've realized life is the journey. It's every step of the way is now my, is now my, my newfound passion and my newfound.
[19:07] SPEAKER_00: I guess, it's all that, you know, I, I don't think five years in advance anymore. I literally think sometimes even five days is too long.
[19:16] SPEAKER_00: I think I want to be extremely focused. I think that's really important now more than ever.
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: You know, getting to keep opening stores is the easy part. Keeping stores open and keeping them successful. That is a bigger challenge sometimes because it's, you got to make sure the concept continues to involve continues to be the best and your staff and your franchise partners continue to have the tools to better themselves every single day.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: And so five years down the road where I hope I have as many, as many successful stores as I can. And that's the key. I'd rather have only 25 and they stay the most 25 successful stores than have 50 and 25 of them are not successful.
[20:06] SPEAKER_02: That's an amazing way to answer this question and like living day by day and making sure that like you keep doing things that from what I'm getting from this whole interview together is like take care of your people.
[20:19] SPEAKER_02: See what you've done in the past that you can apply in your new entrepreneurial journey. Stay focused and really focus on making people, making a better place for people so that they can better themselves love what they do and stay with you to the good and bad, you know.
[20:38] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, that was a great summary. I couldn't start a better myself. Is there anything else you want to share with people listening to us before we end this this great conversation.
[20:52] SPEAKER_00: I think it's also really important as a female entrepreneur to to know that you can't always do it all. And you're going to have moments where
[21:05] SPEAKER_00: like I did this morning where I just yelled in my car really, really, really loud and it felt really good because you know I didn't think I could handle everything, you know my six year old son, the new puppy that I decided to put on my plate, you know all the business, all the business news and domin the three stores we opened in the last two weeks.
[21:27] SPEAKER_00: But even if you can't do it all know that doing your best is and if you can go to bed saying I've done everything that I could potentially do today, you should sleep like a baby.
[21:39] SPEAKER_00: And tomorrow is another day and not to carry on a lot of the negativity that we bring thinking that we can't do it all because we will we can do it all. It just takes some time a little bit more time.
[21:53] SPEAKER_02: And a little bit more compassion with ourselves and accepting that I've done my best and that's it and I should be satisfied with doing my best instead of overthinking of all the things I should have done or could have done differently.
[22:08] SPEAKER_00: No, and just this moment, being able to be present in this moment and not saying, oh, what are the other 10 things that I didn't get done today.
[22:17] SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have been able to be the best meat for you. And the same way that I am with my son now, I used to be that like I have 10 things on my, on my to do list and I'm playing with him and checking emails and writing text. No, be present, be present in the moment that you're in because you'll do the, you'll be the best you with your present.
[22:36] SPEAKER_02: I think that's a great way to end to end our interview today. If, if people want to get to know more about your business, connect with you, what is the best way to do that?
[22:45] SPEAKER_00: I think the best way is by email.
[22:49] SPEAKER_00: Should I say it?
[22:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you want to see it.
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: It's my first name, re2, R-I-T-O-U, at eeditfriends.com. So it's a e-A-T-I-T-B-R-A-N-D-S dot com.
[23:07] SPEAKER_02: Great. Wonderful. Thanks so much for your time today and for opening your, your heart, your business with us and that really appreciate it. And we wish you all the best for what's coming up for your entrepreneurial life.
[23:20] SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much Sandra. It was great talking to you.
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